Joe Biden has nominated three people to the board of the Federal Reserve in what would usher in the most diverse group in the Fed's history - and the most woke.
The president is intent on nominating a white woman, Sarah Bloom Raskin; a black woman, Lisa Cook; and a black man, Philip Jefferson.
If they are confirmed to their posts, the seven-person Fed board would have four women, one black man and two white men - the most diverse team in the Fed's 108 years of existence.
All three have proven liberal credentials.
Bloom Raskin, 60, is married to Congressman Jamie Raskin - a Democrat representing Maryland in the House.
Sarah Bloom Raskin, 60, is in line to be appointed as vice chair of supervision of the Fed - policing the nation's biggest banks. She has been a vocal advocate for more regulation to combat climate change
Bloom Raskin is seen with her husband Jamie Raskin, a Democrat congressman for Maryland
She spent four years as a Fed governor before being tapped as a deputy Treasury secretary from 2014 to 2017, and has been nominated to serve as vice chair of supervision - a job created to oversee the nation's largest banks after the 2008 financial crisis.
She is expected to bring tougher oversight to bear on Wall Street than the Fed's previous vice chair of supervision, Randal Quarles, the founder of a private investment firm nominated to the post by Donald Trump, who left the Fed at the end of last year.
Currently teaching at Duke University School of Law, Raskin has a particular focus on the risks climate change poses to the financial system and the need for regulators to respond.
The Massachusetts-born economist has also spoken about the economic and financial stability risks tied to climate change, and could, at the Fed, demand changes in how institutions weigh and disclose climate change policies.
'There is no longer any doubt that climate change will continue to impose deep economic and financial costs on households, communities, businesses, and entire countries,' she wrote in a September article for Project Syndicate.
'Many of these risks can still be mitigated, but only if regulators in the United States break some bad habits.'
Raskin said that regulators must 'ask themselves how their existing instruments can be used to incentivize a rapid, orderly, and just transition away from high-emission and biodiversity-destroying investments.'
She continued: 'In light of the changing climate's unpredictable – but clearly intensifying – effects on the economy, US regulators will need to leave their comfort zone and act early before the problem worsens and becomes even more expensive to address.'
And in April, she told a forum at Berkeley that the Fed must be more proactive in combating climate change.
'We have begun to move toward an economy and society that's better for us, that provides durable benefits in terms of human health, economic well-being and inclusive prosperity for all our households, businesses and innovators,' Raskin said.
'To capture these benefits requires a maneuvering that is not easy but is within the power to imagine.'
She added: 'This is the treacherous passage we are navigating — trying to neither stay too long in the carbon-based system nor to veer too quickly into resilient systems that have yet to be scaled to provide for the world's demand.
'We need (financial regulators) to transition to a net-zero economy in the most stable, least dangerous way possible.'
Joe Biden, seen on Thursday, is intending to create the most diverse board in the history of the Fed, with four women, one black man and two white men
Patrick Toomey, a Republican senator for Pennsylvania, said he was concerned about her approach to determining the most efficient investment strategy.
'I have serious concerns that she would abuse the Fed's narrow statutory mandates on monetary policy and banking supervision to have the central bank actively engaged in capital allocation,' Toomey said in a statement on Thursday night, following news of Raskin's nomination.
'Such
