Vitter Federal Reserve Audit Amendment Falls

An amendment offered by Senator David Vitter (R-LA) to the Restoring American Financial Stability Act (S. 3217) has been defeated by a vote of 37-62.

It would “remove a section of U.S. code that protects the Federal Reserve from meaningful audits,” according to OpenCongress.

In addition to removing the special protections from audits for the Fed from U.S. code, the Vitter amendment adds new language to help preserve the Fed’s political independence. It reads:

“Audits of the Federal Reserve Board and Federal reserve banks shall not include unreleased transcripts or minutes of meetings of the Board of Governors or of the Federal Open Market Committee. To the extent that an audit deals with individual market actions, records related to such actions shall only be released by the Comptroller General after 180 days have elapsed following the effective date of such actions.”

The major difference between this amendment and one offered by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “is that the Vitter amendment would allow for government audits of the Federal Reserve going forward into the future, while the Sanders amendment would allow the Fed to continue operating under the same audit protections they enjoy currently after one audit is performed.”

(credit image – reuters)