(Reuters) – Sarah Bloom Raskin on Tuesday withdrew as President Joe Biden’s nominee to become the top bank regulator at the Federal Reserve, one day after a key Democratic senator and moderate Republicans said they would not back her, leaving her no path to confirmation by the full Senate, the New Yorker reported.
The news magazine said Raskin had submitted a letter of withdrawal to the White House. Raskin did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Raskin had become the most contentious of Biden’s five nominees to the Fed’s Board of Governors, generating strong opposition from the outset from Republicans who said she would use the post to steer the Fed toward oversight policies that would penalize banks who lend to fossil fuel companies.
Her withdrawal could now clear the way for the Senate to act on the four remaining nominees, which include Jerome Powell for a second term as the central bank’s chair. Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee, which reviews appointments to the Fed, had blocked progress on the nominations by refusing to attend voting sessions over their objections to Raskin’s nomination as vice chair for supervision.
(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
