WASHINGTON — The Senate Banking Committee voted to advance the
The panel approved the nomination of Jonathan Gould, a longtime bank regulatory lawyer who's previously worked at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, to lead the agency in a party-line 13 to 11 vote.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said during the votes that Gould would "put an end to politically motivated debanking and ensure financial institutions serve all credit-worthy Americans, not just those favored by Washington bureaucrats."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the panel's ranking member, said that Gould during his previous tenure at the OCC "weakened the rules and helped undermine the safety and soundness of our national banking system.
"His track record suggests that he will do what's in the best interest of Wall Street and the American people can pay for it with the bailouts that follow," she said.
Gould, who's testified before Congress many times as a subject matter expert, is expected to nix existing rules and guidance at the OCC that obstruct bank-fintech partnerships. He also said during the confirmation hearing that banks and regulators shouldn't discriminate against customers based on politics, a reference to charges that former President Biden encouraged banks to "debank" conservative customers that has been embraced by
"I think it is unacceptable for banks or regulators to discriminate [against] customers on the basis of the customer's politics or religion, or the mere fact that they are engaged in a lawful activity that is for whatever reason, politically disfavored," Gould said.
Luke Pettit, who is nominated for the assistant secretary of financial institutions role at the Treasury Department, got some bipartisan support. His nomination advanced to the full Senate in a 19 to 5 vote. Pettit currently is a bank policy staffer for Sen. Bill Haggerty, R-Tenn.
With the Trump administration's ambition to centralize much of bank regulatory policy under the Treasury Department, Pettit could play a more expansive role than previous incumbents of his position. During the confirmation hearing, he promised to respect bank regulators' independence.
"We need to avoid the outcome of having regulators tell institutions different things," Pettit said. "The objective is to ensure that there isn't uncertainty as to which rules to follow."
The nominations now join Jonathan McKernan to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in queue for consideration by the full Senate. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., derailed business as usual for the upper chamber this week with a record-breaking filibuster speech, which means that these nominations, as well as other Senate business, is pushed further into the future.
The Senate also approved the nomination of Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, again along party lines in a 13 to 11 vote.
Atkins
In the confirmation hearing, Atkins said that "misregulation" rather than deregulation contributed to the financial crisis. He also suggested that the work that regulators have to do in the aftermath of 2008 isn't yet finished.
"What troubles me is that some of the key factors are still unaddressed," he said. "That's Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac's activities in the marketplace, and how that could potentially create problems in the future."
