Pelosi and McConnell Consulting on Names for Oversight Panel

(Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are exchanging names of candidates to lead a new commission to police about $500 billion of loans, loan guarantees and investments for coronavirus-affected industries, including airlines.

Pelosi told reporters Thursday that the two leaders, who will jointly select the chairperson of the panel, are submitting names to each other. But she didn’t identify the candidates or give any hint on her preferences. She also declined to say who she would appoint to the five-person panel, where four of five seats remain vacant.

“In terms of what I can do myself, I will be having an announcement soon,” she said, calling the need to do so “important” and “immediate.” A spokesman for McConnell had no comment on the status of his picks.

The oversight panel was created at the insistence of congressional Democrats during negotiations with the Trump administration over the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus legislation, known as the Cares Act. The Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate each appoint a member of the panel.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy Thursday also offered little hint Thursday of who his pick might be in a separate call with reporters, saying, “I am talking to individuals now” and “I will be making an announcement soon on an appointment.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has made the lone appointment to the panel -- Bharat Ramamurti, a former aide to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Although the commission isn’t fully operational, Ramamurti hasn’t been idle. He has asked the Federal Reserve for information on the trillions in emergency loans that the central bank plans to extend to businesses.

“I write to respectfully request that the Federal Reserve publicly release detailed and timely information about each individual transaction,” Ramamurti said in a four-page letter Wednesday to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. “The public deserves to know which companies are receiving taxpayer-backed lending through the Fed and on what terms.”

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