Dorgan, Grassley plan amendment to call for Fed audit

Two senators are planning to offer an amendment to financial regulatory reform legislation calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve to determine which financial institutions received financial help. 

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said Wednesday that the Fed's unwillingness to share the information about its emergency lending programs despite federal court rulings prompted the amendment. 

The Fed has said it will appeal the rulings, the last one in March, calling for transparency on how much and under what terms for financial firms received trillions in assistance. 

Grassley is already one of 20 co-sponsors on a similar amendment offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). 

"The Fed refuses to disclose this information to the American people so we are taking Congressional action to determine how the Fed has used these trillions of dollars," Dorgan said in the joint release. 

The Fed has taken on more than $2 trillion in mortgage-backed assets in the past couple of years. The final Fed purchase was concluded at the end of March. 

"The Fed has gone beyond was was viewed as its historical authority in the last two and a half years without any transparency or accountability," Grassley said. "Our amendment changes that by making the Fed's emergency loan authority subject the light of day."

In 2009, the two Senators worked with a bipartisan group of 11 lawmakers to force the Fed to disclose the information.