Patrick McHenryChairman

Washington, January 31, 2014 - Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) today announced that Janet Yellen will make her first appearance before a congressional committee as chairman of the Federal Reserve when she appears before the committee on Feb. 11.

Chairman Yellen will appear before the committee to testify on the Fed’s semi-annual Monetary Policy Report to Congress and discuss the state of the U.S. economy.

To coincide with the Federal Reserve’s 100th anniversary this year, the Financial Services Committee announced the “Federal Reserve Centennial Oversight Project” last month. The project is a planned series of oversight hearings and research studies throughout 2014 to examine the Fed’s policy actions.

“It is important for the Federal Reserve to operate in the most transparent and predictable manner it possibly can to best serve the American people, and our committee has an obligation to carefully scrutinize the Fed’s decisions and the way it communicates those decisions,” said Chairman Hensarling. “As the Financial Services Committee embarks upon its most vigorous and sustained oversight of the Federal Reserve ever, I look forward to working with Chairman Yellen to accomplish these goals.”

A key concern among members of the Financial Services Committee is the Federal Reserve’s role in the explosion of the U.S. national debt, said Chairman Hensarling.

“By lowering the borrowing costs of the federal government, the Fed has helped the Obama administration finance nearly $7 trillion in new debt since 2009. At the same time, the Federal Reserve has been buying trillions of dollars of U.S. Treasury securities, swelling its balance sheet to an unheard of $4 trillion – four times the size of its pre-crisis level. Treasury issuing record amounts of debt and the Fed buying it is a dangerous mix. The result is more unsustainable government spending, higher deficits, a country farther along the road to national insolvency and a further erosion of the Fed’s credibility and independence,” Chairman Hensarling said.