Overview
- The Senate Banking Committee is preparing a confirmation hearing as soon as mid-April, and the target date still depends on Kevin Warsh finishing required disclosure paperwork.
- Progress remains uncertain because Sen. Thom Tillis has put a hold linked to a Justice Department probe of Jerome Powell’s office renovation spending.
- Oil prices have climbed after recent U.S. strikes on Iran and disruptions to key shipping lanes, and traders have cut back expectations for interest-rate cuts this year.
- Warsh has proposed cutting the Federal Reserve’s roughly $6.6 trillion balance sheet to make room for later rate reductions, but he has not detailed how he would carry that out.
- Experts such as Darrell Duffie say meaningful balance-sheet cuts would need short-term market operations and longer regulatory changes, a process that could take months or years.