Republican Sen. Pat Toomey was named by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to a five-member commission to police about $500 billion in coronavirus rescue loans to industries, including airlines.
Toomey of Pennsylvania will join GOP Rep. French Hill of Arkansas, chosen earlier Friday by House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy; and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer’s choice, Bharat Ramamurti, a former aide to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, announced last week.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has yet to announce her pick. She and McConnell also are to jointly choose a chairman for the panel who will be its fifth member.
“Senator Toomey is one of the sharpest members of the Senate,” McConnell said in an emailed statement. “He is a leader on economics and finance and a key member of the Finance, Banking, and Budget committees. The commission will benefit greatly from his expertise.”
Hill, who became a House member in 2015, served in the Treasury Department under President George H.W. Bush and also founded a bank in Arkansas.
McCarthy said Hill’s background “provides important expertise that will guide his advocacy of immediate and effective solutions for the American people struggling from the despair during this crisis. French will do a terrific job.”
The oversight panel was created at the insistence of congressional Democrats during negotiations with President Donald Trump’s administration over the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus legislation known as the Cares Act.
Pelosi’s office didn’t say Friday when her choice and the chairman would be announced.
Hill is a member of the House Financial Services Committee and is the top Republican on its subcommittee on national security, international development and monetary policy.
He was founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Delta Trust & Banking Corp., which was headquartered in Little Rock and recently merged with Arkansas-based Simmons First National Corp., according to his congressional biography.
Prior to his community banking work in Arkansas, Hill served in the Bush administration from 1989 until 1991. Hill served as deputy assistant Treasury secretary for corporate finance.
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