Senate confirms Fischer as No. 2 at Fed

The Senate voted 63-24 to confirm the nomination of Stanley Fischer to serve as vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Fischer will serve as Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s No. 2 on the board.

{mosads}Last month, the Senate voted 68-27 to place Fischer on the board, but because of some Republican objection, the Senate had to hold a second vote to appoint him as vice chairman.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he would block all Federal Reserve Board nominees until the Senate voted on S. 209, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act.

“The American people have a right to know what this institution is doing with the nation’s money supply,” Paul said. “The Federal Reserve does not need prolonged secrecy — it needs to be audited, and my bipartisan Federal Reserve Transparency Act will do just that.”

President Obama chose Fischer, who has served in top roles at the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of Israel, to take over for Yellen, who took over the reins of the central bank when Chairman Ben Bernanke left. 

When Obama nominated Fischer at the beginning of the year, he said Fischer “brings decades of leadership and expertise” and “he is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading and most experienced economic policy minds.”

The president said he is confident that Fischer and Yellen would “make a great team.”

On Thursday, the Senate also confirmed two other nominees to serve as members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

The Senate voted 61-31 to confirm Lael Brainard and 67-24 to confirm Jerome Powell.

“The Federal Reserve Board has many important tasks at hand including the continued implementation of Wall Street Reform, establishing policies to improve financial stability, reduce systemic risk and end ‘too-big-to-fail’,” Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) said after the votes. “I look forward to working with the newly confirmed Governors.”

— Vicki Needham contributed to this article.