On the recordJuly 24, 2012
I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 459, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, directs the GAO to conduct a full audit of the Federal Reserve. The Dodd-Frank legislation mandated a GAO audit of the Fed, but that audit, issued by the Government Accountability Office in July of 2011, focused solely on the issues concerning emergency credit facilities. GAO remains restricted, under the current law, from conducting a broader audit of the Fed that includes, for instance, a review of the Fed's monetary policy operations and its agreements with foreign governments and central banks. The bill remedies this situation by permitting GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, to conduct a nonpartisan audit that will review all of these transactions. The findings of the audit are to be reported to Congress. It is particularly appropriate that we consider this legislation at this time. While Congress should not manage or micromanage details of monetary policy, it needs to be able to conduct oversight of the Fed. The Fed was created by Congress to be a central bank, independent of the influence of the U.S. Treasury. It was never intended to, in fact, be independent of Congress or independent of the American people. In recent years, the Fed's extraordinary interventions into the economy and financial markets have led some to call into question its independence. We do not ask for an audit for that reason.…
