WASHINGTON: Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard, in a hearing for her nomination to become the U.S. central bank's vice chair, pledged on Thursday to help bring inflation under control and deflected Republican senators' concerns that she would use the position to sway national climate change policies.
In a hint that her nomination may be a proxy for a larger partisan debate about the Fed's direction, Brainard was quizzed by Republican Senator Pat Toomey on whether her support for more climate research and analysis at the central bank was "a precursor to direct capital away from" carbon-intensive industries.