President Joe Biden said Friday he plans to nominate Michael Barr, the dean of the University of Michigan’s public policy school, to be the Federal Reserve’s vice chairman of supervision.
The selection of Barr comes after Biden’s first choice for the Fed post, Sarah Bloom Raskin, withdrew her nomination a month ago in the face of opposition from Republicans and one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Raskin’s critics had argued that she would apply the Fed’s regulatory authority to climate change and possibly discourage banks from lending to energy companies.
But with Barr, Biden noted the importance of politics in a Friday statement that said his nominee had previously cleared the Senate on a bipartisan basis. “Michael brings the expertise and experience necessary for this important position at a critical time for our economy and families across the country,” Biden said.
The Democratic president said that Barr “has spent his career protecting consumers, and during his time at Treasury, played a critical role in creating both the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the position for which I am nominating him.”
Barr is the dean of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He was an assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions during the Obama administration who helped design the 2010 Dodd-Frank regulations after the devastating 2008 financial crisis. Barr, a Rhodes Scholar who clerked for Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, also served during the Clinton administration at the White House, the Treasury Department and the State Department.