U.S. Senator Katie Britt Questions Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent During Senate Banking Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) participated in a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the Financial Stability Oversight Council's (FSOC) annual report to Congress, where she questioned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the agriculture industry, sanctioning the Iranian regime, and regulatory tailoring.

Senator Britt discussed the Biden Administration's failure to deliver for American agriculture producers, calling to prioritize passing an updated Farm Bill: "When I look back over the last four years of the Biden Administration, it was failed policies for our agriculture industry. Number one, President Biden walked away from the trade deals and the trade gains that President Trump had gotten for our ag industry. Number two, with record high inflation, it hit our farmers worse than anyone. Both the energy-the war on energy of the Biden Administration-plus the amount and the payment of equipment, plus the fact that input cost had literally been frozen and the Biden Administration failed to pass a Farm Bill, didn't even try. So here you had record high costs with energy, equipment, labor, inflation, and then you cap what they can make. And I don't remember one person on the other side of the aisle saying, 'Let's move a Farm Bill. Let's help these people. Let's drive down energy costs.'"

Secretary Bessent responded, "…[E]very time President Trump has spoken with Party Chair XI, he suggested he buys more soybeans and slowly that tapered off. And we said why? [He] said Biden … didn't enforce the purchase agreements."

Senator Britt asked Secretary Bessent about the role Treasury can continue to play in exerting pressure against the dangerous Iranian regime: "Speaking of something else we walked away from in the Biden Administration, was actually being tough on Iran when it came to sanctions. I appreciate the maximum pressure strategy that President Trump has gone back to. I'd like to ask you, what more can we be doing as we see us place pressure on the Ayatollah, who is no friend of the United States of America? And as we see what he is doing to the citizens of his own country and the streets, what more can we be doing to make sure that we are placing the pressure that we need to on the greatest state sponsor of terrorism and that is the Ayatollah, and Iran?"

Secretary Bessent responded, "Well, what we can do at Treasury and what we have do is have done is created a dollar shortage in the country … It came to a swift, and I would say grand, culmination in December when one of the largest banks in Iran went under … The Iranian currency went into freefall. Inflation exploded, and hence we have seen the Iranian people out on the street. We will continue monitoring … all the Iranian partners … We have seen the Iranian leadership wiring money out of the country like crazy. So the rats are leaving the ship, and that is a good sign that they know the end may be near."

Senator Britt then asked Secretary Bessent about how FSOC is calibrating the regulatory framework for financial institutions, noting the importance of regulatory tailoring, stating, "It is obviously my belief that proper tailoring actually ensures that supervision is grounded in economic reality rather than subject ideology. Can you speak a little bit to the work that you and FSOC agencies are doing to more properly calibrate our regulatory framework, whether it's capital rules or stress testing or even adjusting outdated thresholds?"

Secretary Bessent responded saying that, "We are looking at all the thresholds … Too big to fail become too small to succeed… And we don't want to see more of our small banks go under.

You can watch the Senator's full remarks here.

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