On the Senate Floor, Brown Urges Colleagues to Support Dr. Lisa Cook's Nomination to the Federal Reserve
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today on the Senate Floor, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, called on his colleagues to support the nomination of Dr. Lisa Cook to be a Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Video of Senator Brown’s remarks is available here.
Sen. Brown’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, follow:
Mr./Madame President, I urge my colleagues to join me in confirming Lisa Cook to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Dr. Cook is an unquestionably qualified economist with many years of experience. She brings a breadth of research and international experience on monetary policy, banking, and financial crises. In fact, she is one the country’s leading researchers on international economic growth and innovation economics.
Dr. Cook currently serves as a dual-tenured professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. She previously taught at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and served on the Council of Economic Advisers during the Eurozone crisis and at the Department of Treasury.
She is also a historic nominee. If confirmed, she would be the first black woman ever, in the more than 100 year history of the Fed, to serve on its Board. Take a moment to think about that
She knows that workers drive our economic growth. And she knows how important their local communities are.
Dr. Cook spent her formative years in the South, and a significant portion of her career in the industrial Midwest. She’s seen how the economy works for all kinds of different people, in different parts of the country. She arrived on campus at Michigan State a few years before the financial crisis, and she saw its impact on the students, the professors, the entire community.
She has made it clear that she is dedicated to Fed independence and will uphold the Fed’s dual mandate of maximum employment and price stability.
Her nomination represents another example of the Biden administration’s serious efforts to make the economy work for everyone, not just those at the top.
This is a critical time for the Fed. We need Dr. Cook — and all of our qualified nominees — on the job immediately to fight inflation.
Dr. Cook is unquestionably qualified and possesses bipartisan support from top economists, former Fed Governors, bankers, and civil rights organizations.
Despite her broad support, a small but loud minority have wrongly claimed that Lisa Cook doesn’t meet the standards for this position – standards that only seem to apply for certain nominees. Still, she has met and exceeded all of those high bars: she’s a PhD economist, she is a tenured professor, and she is sought by organizations around the world for her input and perspective.
She will bring a critical voice to the Fed—one that has been missing for far too long.
I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in supporting Dr. Cook’s nomination, and getting her on the board right away to help in our economic recovery.
I yield the floor.
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