President Joe Biden will nominate former Treasury Department official, Michael Barr, to be the Federal Reserve’s top regulator in charge of big banks. Barr is the White House’s frontrunner for the top regulatory job. If appointed, the financial law author perhaps becomes the most powerful U.S. bank regulator: the Fed Vice chair supervision.
Barr helped design the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act during his service as assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions during the Obama administration. That law became one of the most extensive overhauls of financial regulation in U.S. history and came on the heels of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Among its many provisions to protect the economy from future calamity, Dodd-Frank produced both the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Fed’s vice chair for supervision. Biden said in a statement Friday morning accompanying the formal White House announcement. “He was instrumental in the passage of Dodd-Frank, to ensure a future financial crisis would not create devastating economic hardship for working families.” “He understands that this job is not a partisan one, but one that plays a critical role in regulating our nation’s financial institutions to ensure Americans are treated fairly and to protect the stability of our economy.”
