WASHINGTON (AP) – Randal Quarles, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Federal Reserve Board, says he likes a predecessor’s ideas for where regulators should prune banking rules.
At his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, Quarles said he agreed with recent recommendations of the man he’d replace as the head of bank oversight. The predecessor, Daniel Tarullo, only filled the role informally. Quarles was nominated by Trump and would be the first official vice chair for bank supervision, making him a key player in the president’s drive to scale back financial rules.
Quarles was a senior Treasury official under both Bush presidencies and now co-heads an investment firm. He’s expected to win approval from the Senate Banking Committee, after which the nomination will go to the full Senate. Confirmation is all but assured.
Tarullo, who’d been appointed a Fed governor by President Barack Obama, had been seen as a tough regulator. Stepping down in April, he said in a speech on rules written under the Dodd-Frank oversight law, “there are clearly some changes that can be made without endangering financial stability.”
The Dodd-Frank law, enacted by the Democrats and Obama after the 2008 financial crisis, has been fiercely condemned by Trump in his campaign and by Republicans in Congress. It was intended to restrain major banks – which received taxpayer bailouts after the crisis – from engaging in the kind of reckless actions that ended up costing millions of Americans their jobs and homes.