Joint Economic Committee Chairman Carolyn Maloney called on regulators Tuesday to follow a recommendation by the head of the Troubled Asset Relief Program oversight panel and to continue administering stress tests to the nation's largest financial institutions.
Elizabeth Warren, who heads the oversight panel, testified before Maloney's committee on the findings of a report released Tuesday which said the stress tests were helpful but too limited. Warren said the tests were limited by the self-reporting of data from the institutions, and by the fact that the Fed evaluated worst-case scenarios only through next year.
"Stress testing should also be repeated so long as banks continue to hold large amounts of toxic assets on their books," she said. "Between formal tests conducted by the regulators, banks should be required to run internal stress tests and should share the results with regulators. Regulators should have the ability to use stress tests in the future when they believe that doing so would help to promote a healthy banking system."
Maloney supported Warren's recommendations. "I second the panel's recommendation that the time horizon of the stress tests needs to be extended beyond 2010 — especially considering the ongoing concerns in the commercial real estate market, which could have significant longer-term negative impacts on the financial system," the New York Democrat said in a press release after the hearing.
