WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will nominate a permanent leader for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in the coming weeks and has named two Republicans for the minority-held spots on the FDIC's board.
The White House has tapped Travis Hill, former FDIC Chair Jelena McWilliams' policy chief, to be vice chair of the FDIC Board. Jonathan McKernan, senior counsel at the Federal Housing Finance Agency who's currently working with the Senate Banking Committee under ranking member Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., as a member of the board.
The vice chair spot that Hill has been nominated to fill, according to the FDIC's bylaws, should take over leadership of the agency in the absence of a confirmed FDIC Chair. Martin Gruenberg has served as acting FDIC chair since the departure of McWilliams, but has not been nominated as permanent chair.
A White House official said that a nomination for a Senate-confirmed FDIC leader is "forthcoming," but gave no indication if Gruenberg will receive the nomination.
"These two FDIC board nominations will move with our forthcoming Chair nomination in a bipartisan fashion as we have done for several other boards and commissions," a White House official said.
It's unlikely that the Senate Banking Committee, led by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, would move the Republican nominations until they have a Democratic nominee that would lead the agency.
The two Republican nominees would fill out the two seats that, by statute, go to the minority party on the FDIC's five-person board, including the chair and the vice chair. The other two positions are held by the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Comptroller of the Currency.
Brown, who will lead the first round of vetting for the nominees to advance to the full Senate, said he looks "forward to reviewing and evaluating these nominees' qualifications and experience to determine if they are the right fit for the FDIC."
Toomey signaled strong support for the Republican nominees from his camp, saying that after working with McKernan "personally," he believes that he's "highly qualified" to serve on the board of the FDIC. Toomey said that Hill "played a critical role at the agency," during McWilliams' tenure.
