WASHINGTON - The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to vote Thursday on the nominations of Texas community banker Donald E. Powell to be chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and of Roger W. Ferguson Jr. to serve a second term on the Federal Reserve Board.
The panel is expected to easily approve the two, who would then have to be confirmed by the full Senate.
The votes are scheduled to be taken at the confirmation hearings of New York Stock Exchange executive Sheila C. Bair to be assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions, and of Mark B. McClellan, an economics and medicine professor at Stanford University, to join the President's Council of Economic Advisors.
A counsel to former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., in the mid-1980s, Ms. Bair joined the exchange in 1995 as senior vice president for government affairs. She is currently a consultant to Richard A. Grasso, chairman of the Big Board. From 1991 to 1995 she held a seat on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Her confirmation could be held up in the full Senate by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., who has blocked votes on four other key Treasury nominees because of a dispute with the department over textile trade issues.
