Janet Yellen, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, is one step closer to the appointment of the Treasury Secretary.
The Senate Committee on Finance voted unanimously to approve the nomination of Yellen on Friday morning, thus offering a full vote in the Senate. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has said he hopes the GOP’s support will indicate ‘two-sided’ support under the new Democratic government.
Fellow Republicans said they supported Yellen, although they did not agree on several of her policies. The general consensus was that she was extraordinarily capable of the post.
Committee members had hoped for a full vote in the Senate to confirm Yellen’s appointment on Friday, but as of publication it has yet to materialize.
If confirmed as Treasury Secretary, Yellen will become a key member of President Biden’s cabinet and will act as chief adviser on economic issues and fiscal policy. She would also be the first woman to hold the post.
During her confirmation hearing in the Senate on Tuesday, Yellen called for “great action” on the Covid-19 crisis. She said:
“Economists do not always agree, but I think there is consensus now: without further action, we risk a longer, more painful recession – and long-lasting scars of the economy later.”
Between 2014 and 2018, Yellen headed the Federal Reserve and became the first woman to do so. Under her leadership, the central bank made its first attempt to normalize monetary policy – an initiative that was later curtailed under Jerome Powell.
The cryptocurrency industry has been following Yellen’s nomination process closely. The former Fed chief gave mixed signals about digital assets. On the one hand, it has identified Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital assets as a major innovation in the optimization of global transactions. On the other hand, she expressed concern about Crypto’s role in money laundering and illegal financing.
The last days of the Trump administration have caused great anxiety to the cryptocurrency industry after then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin tried to track down new regulations targeting self-offered cryptocurrencies.
On his first day in office, President Biden placed a general freeze on all the governing federal agencies, thus blocking several Trump-era policies to move forward. The proposed regulation of the crypto-wallet was among them.