Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rick Scott (R-FL) are demanding that the Federal Reserve’s inspector general disclose his salary as part of their continued efforts to tighten oversight on banking regulators.
The bipartisan duo introduced legislation in May to make the Fed’s top watchdog a Senate-confirmed position, arguing that the role currently lacks independence because the inspector general reports directly to the Fed board they’re tasked with overseeing. As part of their efforts to enact that change, the two sent a letter to Federal Reserve Inspector General Mark Bialek asking that he provide his salary for each of the last five calendar years.
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“Because the Fed Inspector General’s salary is in part based on the bonuses earned by other Fed employees — there is a structural, financial incentive for the IG to overlook or downplay wrongdoing by those Fed officials,” Warren and Scott wrote in the letter.
The letter also asked Bialek to reveal what percentage of his salary was based on the average bonus component of the pay formula and if he had looked into Fed bonuses in the last five years.
A spokesperson for the IG's office said it had received and was reviewing Warren and Scott's letter. They declined to offer further comment while the review process is ongoing.
Scott was bullish when asked by the Washington Examiner on Tuesday if there was bipartisan support for the effort, pointing out that the Fed had lost $1.2 trillion in the last year and “built a balance sheet” that “caused a complete misallocation of capital.”
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“I think there's a lot of interest up here in reining in what the Federal Reserve is doing. They were never set up to be buying long-term securities and government-backed bonds,” Scott said. “And so I think there's a lot of interest up here in holding them accountable.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have vowed to crack down on banks and banking regulators in the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank shutdowns earlier this year that rattled financial markets.