Fed Nominees Clarida and Bowman Testify in Confirmation Hearings

"My general feeling is that there are benefits and costs" to the policy known as quantitative easing, Clarida said. He said he thought its first use in 2008 "made sense," but that "the benefits of QE diminished as more and more rounds were added."

Transcripts of Fed policy meetings show Powell also had reservations about multiple rounds of quantitative easing. As officials discussed a third round of bond buying in September 2012, Powell said he supported the move "with a certain lack of enthusiasm."

The hearing underscored that Clarida represented another mainstream pick for the Fed by Trump. Clarida, 60, would bring a set of respected academic and market credentials to the central bank.

Community Banks

Bowman, the state bank commissioner in Kansas, also offered cautious answers during the hearing, especially in her limited remarks on monetary policy. She spent more time on banking, decrying consolidation in the industry that had caused the number of community banks to shrink dramatically over the past several years, and the regulatory issues that small banks faced.

"It's important to understand the burden on a staff of three of implementing the same regulations that are applied to much larger banks," she said.

Clarida, a Columbia University professor, is a prominent monetary economist and a global strategic adviser at Pacific Investment Management Co. He also served at the Treasury Department in the George W. Bush administration. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Bowman is a fifth-generation banker who worked at Farmers & Drovers Bank in Council Grove, Kansas. She also served in government for several years in Washington, first on the staff of former Kansas Senator Bob Dole and later as deputy assistant secretary and policy adviser to former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. She earned a law degree at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.

Though at least one Democrat, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, appeared unsatisfied by Clarida's remarks on regulation, neither he nor Bowman appear to have attracted any significant opposition to their nominations. That stands in contrast to the confrontation that unfolded when Carnegie Mellon Professor Marvin Goodfriend, also nominated by Trump to serve on the Fed Board of Governors, testified in January.

Goodfriend struggled to respond to a grilling by Democrats over his monetary policy views. He was ultimately approved by the committee, but on a strict party-line vote. That, combined with the subsequent announcement by Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky that he would oppose Goodfriend, made his approval by the full Senate uncertain, and his nomination hasn't yet come to the floor.

Following Tuesday's hearing, Senate Banking Chairman Mike Crapo of Idaho said Goodfriend's nomination was still alive. If all three Fed nominees are eventually confirmed, that would leave only one remaining vacancy at the seven-seat Board of Governors.