Patrick McHenryChairman

Washington, July 24, 2012 - The House of Representatives is expected to vote tomorrow on a bill introduced by Rep. Ron Paul, Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology, to authorize a full audit of the Federal Reserve System.

H.R. 459 removes existing restrictions on the Government Accountability Office’s ability to fully audit the Fed and calls for an audit to be completed within one year. The legislation is the culmination of House Republican efforts to allow for a complete and robust audit of the Federal Reserve.

The financial regulatory reform bill (H.R. 3310) introduced in 2010 by House Republicans authorized a full audit of the Federal Reserve and Republicans were able to add the “audit the Fed” provision to the House-passed version of the regulatory reform bill.  However, the Senate weakened the provision by exempting from the audit monetary policy decisions, discount window operations, and agreements between the Fed and foreign central banks, foreign governments and international organizations.  H.R. 459 removes these restrictions.

Subcommittee Chairman Paul said, "It is good to see that Congress is finally getting serious about exercising its oversight responsibility over the Federal Reserve.  Auditing the Fed is a common sense issue supported by an overwhelming majority of the American people. The Fed’s trillions of dollars worth of asset purchases and its ongoing support of foreign central banks cannot be allowed to continue without Congressional oversight."