Senate confirms Columbia University professor to be Fed vice chairman

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed economist and investment manager Richard Clarida to be vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, marking President Trump’s second addition to the central bank.

Clarida, a Columbia University professor and director at Pacific Investment Management Company, was confirmed in a 69-26 vote to serve as the Fed’s No. 2 official. He was also confirmed to be a member of the Fed board for the remainder of 14-year term first begun in 2008 by former Fed Governor Dan Tarullo.

Clarida’s supporters tout his decades of research and expertise in monetary policy and say he’ll be a valuable academic complement to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s experience in financial markets.

Republicans and some moderate Democrats spoke highly of Clarida when he testified before the Senate Banking Committee in May, while liberals expressed concerns about his support for rolling back some post-crisis financial rules.{mosads}

Like Powell and Fed Vice Chairman of Supervision Randal Quarles, Clarida is a moderate Republican who has supported gradual interest rate hikes and scaling back certain Dodd-Frank regulations.

Trump has reshaped the Fed since taking office. He declined to renominate former Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen, a Democrat, and in 2017 chose Powell, who was first appointed to the Fed in 2013, to lead the central bank. He also picked Quarles to spearhead the Fed’s revision of key Dodd-Frank rules long protested by the banking industry.

Trump has two additional Fed nominees pending before the Senate: Michelle Bowman, the Kansas state bank commissioner who was nominated alongside Clarida, and Marvin Goodfriend, a Carnegie Mellon University professor and former senior Fed official.

Bowman, nominated to represent community bankers on the Fed board, appears likely to be confirmed before the end of the year. Goodfriend’s confirmation appears doubtful after several Republicans expressed opposition to his controversial monetary policy proposals.

Updated at 4:33 p.m.