On Monday, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia issued a statement indicating he wouldn’t vote in favor of Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination for the Federal Reserve's vice chair of supervision. The reason? Manchin doesn’t support what Raskin’s had to say about fossil fuels. “Her previous public statements have failed to satisfactorily address my concerns about the critical importance of financing an ‘all of the above’ energy policy to meet our nation’s critical energy needs,” Manchin said in a statement. “I have come to the conclusion that I am unable to support her nomination to serve as a member of the Federal Reserve Board.” Ironically, Manchin claimed the Fed “is not an institution that should politicize its critical decisions.” The Democrat has been pushing the “all of the above” talking point to refer to increasing domestic oil and gas production alongside investing in renewables for months and even includes it on his website.
Raskin has been in strong disagreement for much longer. In 2020, she penned an op-ed for The New York Times criticizing the Fed for “directing money to further entrench the carbon economy,” and called fossil fuels “a dying industry.” When Raskin testified before the Senate Banking Committee last month, she was forced to answer for what she’d written. When asked by Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania whether financial regulators should “allocate capital away from those companies that are contributing the most to carbon in the atmosphere,” Raskin replied that the Fed is not in the business of picking “winners and losers.”
“To do so is not the proper institutional role of the Fed. That is a cardinal principle of Fed supervision,” Raskin said. Just one day before her Feb. 3 testimony, Senate Banking Committee Republicans released a staff report slamming Raskin’s prior climate remarks, erroneously claiming that energy giants would face de-banking were Raskin to be confirmed.
GOP opposition from the likes of Toomey and others isn’t new and is likely heavily influenced by the many fossil fuel companies that have cumulatively pumped millions into the campaigns of the 12 Republicans who sit on the Senate Banking Committee. Manchin’s opposition is a recent development but, though he is not part of the Senate Banking Committee, his vote is crucial to confirming Raskin. It’s an infuriating pattern to climate activists and experts like Bill McKibben, who wrote in his “The Crucial Years” Substack that this is just the latest obstruction enacted by Manchin, who’s taken issue with seemingly every green policy he sets eyes on. McKibben correctly points out just how antiquated Manchin’s “all of the above” rhetoric is, connecting it to Obama-era talking points that aimed to court the renewables industry without angering the fossil fuels sector.
A White House spokesperson balked at Manchin’s unwillingness to support Raskin, calling her “one of the most qualified people to have ever been nominated for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.” Raskin previously served as a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors and also held the role of Deputy Secretary of the Treasury for nearly three years during President Obama’s second term.
“She has earned widespread support in the face of an unprecedented, baseless campaign led by oil and gas companies that sought to tarnish her distinguished career,” the White House spokesperson continued. “We are working to line up the bipartisan support that she deserves so that she can be confirmed by the Senate for this important position.”
Republicans like Toomey had previously indicated they were fine with advancing the nominations of four others picked by Biden to serve the Federal Reserve—just not Raskin—and Manchin even said himself in a recent Politico interview that the smart strategy would be to focus on confirming Lael Brainard, Lisa Cook, and Philip Jefferson as well as confirming Jerome Powell for a second term as Fed chair. Brainard has previously supported efforts to combat climate change and Cook has supported investments focused on targeting climate change such as the Build Back Better Act.
Jefferson has been quieter on environmental issues, so I reached out to see what he has to say about climate change and will update this post if I hear back.