Powell defends $2.5 billion Fed renovation in a point-by-point response to the Trump administration
CNN
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell responded by letter Thursday to a senior Trump administration official who accused the head of the central bank of mismanaging an “ostentatious overhaul” of its Washington, DC, headquarters.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell responded by letter Thursday to a senior Trump administration official who accused the head of the central bank of mismanaging an “ostentatious overhaul” of its Washington, DC, headquarters. Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, suggested in a social media post last week that Powell had broken the law by failing to comply with government oversight regulations related to the Fed’s ongoing $2.5 billion renovation, which includes the historic marble Marriner S. Eccles Building on the National Mall. “The President is extremely troubled by your management of the Federal Reserve System,” Vought wrote in the letter he posted to social media last Thursday. “Instead of attempting to right the Fed’s fiscal ship, you have plowed ahead with an ostentatious overhaul of your Washington D.C. headquarters.” He gave Powell “seven business days” to respond to the July 10 letter. Powell said in his response late Thursday that the renovation and its financing have always had careful oversight from the central bank’s board and its own watchdog. He added that the Fed is “not generally subject to the direction” of the National Capital Planning Commission, a body that oversees construction projects for the federal government. Powell said the Fed voluntarily opted to collaborate with the NCPC. “We have taken great care to ensure the project is carefully overseen since it was first approved by the Board in 2017,” Powell wrote.
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