Latest news with #MichaelHorowitz
Reuters
15-07-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Fed's Powell asks watchdog to take fresh look at renovation project, Politico reports
WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has asked the Fed board's inspector general to take a fresh look at the project aimed at overhauling Fed buildings, Politico reported on Monday, citing a letter to lawmakers by Powell. Powell called on the Fed's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, to examine the project's cost, which has ballooned to $2.5 billion, leading to allies of President Donald Trump to call for Powell to be held accountable. Trump has repeatedly criticized Powell over interest rates and said the Fed chair should resign, but the president does not have the power to fire him over a monetary policy dispute. Recent comments from White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on criticism of the Fed's renovation costs have confirmed the view that the Trump administration is actively exploring those costs and Powell's testimony about the project as a possible avenue to try to fire the Fed chief well before his term as chair ends in May 2026. The lawmakers addressed in the reported Powell letter were Republican Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the committee. "The Chairman looks forward to receiving additional information about the costly renovations at the Fed's headquarters," a spokesperson for Scott said in response to the reported letter, adding the letter was consistent with improving transparency. The Fed had no immediate comment. Powell wrote in the letter cited by Politico that the watchdog has had "full access to project information on costs, contracts, schedules, and expenditures and receives monthly reports on the construction program." Powell, who was nominated by Trump in late 2017 to lead the Fed and then nominated for a second term by then-President Joe Biden four years later, has said he intends to serve out his term as Fed chief, which ends on May 15.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Powell asks watchdog to probe Fed HQ renovations as Trump pressure grows
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers on Monday that he has asked the central bank's watchdog to scrutinize renovations of the Fed's headquarters, in response to growing criticism from the Trump administration of the plan. Powell called on the Fed's inspector-general, Michael Horowitz, to examine the project's cost, which has ballooned to $2.5 billion, as well as any other aspect he deems appropriate, according to a person familiar with the request. The request was referenced in a letter, first reported by POLITICO, that Powell sent to Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the committee. Speculation has mounted that President Donald Trump, who has clashed with Powell for refusing to cut interest rates, might try to use the renovations to remove the Fed chief 'for cause,' as allowed by statute. Still, it is unclear what type of behavior would fall under that standard. It has generally been interpreted to mean that the president cannot fire Fed board members over policy disagreements, and the Supreme Court signaled in a recent order that it might block a move to remove the Fed chair without cause. Horowitz, who was appointed by Powell last month, was previously the inspector general for the Justice Department, where he won praise from Trump and his supporters for uncovering problems in the FBI's handling of the investigation into potential collusion between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia. Powell wrote in the letter that the IG has had 'full access to project information on costs, contracts, schedules, and expenditures and receives monthly reports on the construction program.' 'The Board's IG conducted an audit in 2021 to assess the Board's process for planning and managing multiple renovation projects as well as procuring services under various renovation-related contracts,' he added. 'I have asked the Board's IG to take a fresh look at the project.' A spokesperson for Scott said the Banking chair looks forward to receiving more information about 'the costly renovations at the Fed's headquarters.' 'Chairman Scott has continued to call for increased transparency and accountability at the Federal Reserve, and this letter is consistent with improving the communication and transparency he is seeking,' a spokesperson for the senator said in a statement to POLITICO. Axios earlier reported news of Powell's request to the IG. The headquarters renovation, which has been underway for multiple years, is a new front in the administration's criticism of the Fed. Powell was asked at a hearing last month by Scott about the project after a New York Post article characterized it as akin to the 'Palace of Versailles,' a characterization the Fed chief disputed. White House Budget Director Russ Vought — along with the National Capital Planning Commission — is investigating Powell over both the testimony he provided to Congress and questions about whether the construction project adhered to the National Capital Planning Act. Powell wrote in his letter that the Fed chose to consult with NCPC but is not subject to its jurisdiction. He also said the project has changed from its original proposal. 'As is to be expected in the major renovation of nearly 100-year-old historic buildings, the Board's designs have continued to evolve over the course of the project, and some features of the buildings, including rooftop spaces and new water features on the building grounds, were scaled back or eliminated as the project moved forward,' Powell said in the letter. 'These changes simplified the project and reduced the likelihood of further delays and cost overruns. None of them added cost to the project. We do not consider these changes to be substantial.' National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on ABC News on Sunday that the question of whether Trump can fire the Fed chair is 'a thing that's being looked into.' Hassett is one of four candidates to replace Powell when his term ends next year, according to people familiar with the administration's deliberations.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Fed's Powell asks for inspector general review of project criticized by Trump officials
By Howard Schneider WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has asked the U.S. central bank's inspector general to review the costs involved in the renovation of its historic headquarters in Washington, as Trump administration officials intensify their criticism of how the Fed is being run. The request to Fed Inspector General Michael Horowitz, first reported by Axios, was made over the weekend, according to a source familiar with the matter. It follows a letter to Powell last week from Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who wrote that President Donald Trump was "extremely troubled" by cost overruns in the $2.5 billion project. In material posted to its website on Friday, the Fed described the challenges in a complete rehabilitation of the nearly 100-year-old Marriner S. Eccles building and a neighboring property on Constitution Avenue in the nation's capital. OMB has no oversight over the Fed, which funds its own operations separately from the appropriations process in Congress. The Federal Reserve Act also gives the central bank's seven-member Board of Governors control over its building and related projects, with oversight by Congress and the Fed's independent IG, which has been reviewing the renovations throughout the process. But Vought's criticism marked an escalation by the Trump administration against Powell and the Fed more broadly. Trump has been angry over the central bank's refusal to cut interest rates on his timetable. Fed officials, however, have resisted cutting rates until there is clarity on whether Trump's tariffs on U.S. trading partners reignite inflation. Trump has said Powell should resign, but the president does not have the power to fire him over a monetary policy dispute. Powell, who was nominated by Trump in late 2017 to lead the Fed and then nominated for a second term by then-President Joe Biden four years later, has said he intends to serve out his term as Fed chief, which ends on May 15. A list of "frequently asked questions" about the project, posted by the Fed on Friday included several raised by Vought and also addressed by Powell during a recent hearing in Congress, when the Fed chief clarified, for example, that contrary to some press reports there were no private elevators being installed to carry Fed officials to a private dining room. The Eccles building, the Fed's main headquarters, was built during former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration. The neighboring site at 1951 Constitution Avenue, which dates to the administration of Roosevelt's predecessor, Herbert Hoover, had been used by a number of agencies before being turned over to the Fed in 2018 by the first Trump administration "enabling them to renovate this historic property," Trump's General Services Administration said in a press release at the time. "This transfer will put a vacant building back in productive use, allow the Federal Reserve Board to consolidate several leases and result in savings for taxpayers," it said.
Reuters
14-07-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Fed's Powell asks for inspector general review of project criticized by Trump officials
WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has asked the U.S. central bank's inspector general to review the costs involved in the renovation of its historic headquarters in Washington, as Trump administration officials intensify their criticism of how the Fed is being run. The request to Fed Inspector General Michael Horowitz, first reported by Axios, was made over the weekend, according to a source familiar with the matter. It follows a letter to Powell last week from Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who wrote that President Donald Trump was "extremely troubled" by cost overruns in the $2.5 billion project. In material posted to its website on Friday, the Fed described the challenges in a complete rehabilitation of the nearly 100-year-old Marriner S. Eccles building and a neighboring property on Constitution Avenue in the nation's capital. OMB has no oversight over the Fed, which funds its own operations separately from the appropriations process in Congress. The Federal Reserve Act also gives the central bank's seven-member Board of Governors control over its building and related projects, with oversight by Congress and the Fed's independent IG, which has been reviewing the renovations throughout the process. But Vought's criticism marked an escalation by the Trump administration against Powell and the Fed more broadly. Trump has been angry over the central bank's refusal to cut interest rates on his timetable. Fed officials, however, have resisted cutting rates until there is clarity on whether Trump's tariffs on U.S. trading partners reignite inflation. Trump has said Powell should resign, but the president does not have the power to fire him over a monetary policy dispute. Powell, who was nominated by Trump in late 2017 to lead the Fed and then nominated for a second term by then-President Joe Biden four years later, has said he intends to serve out his term as Fed chief, which ends on May 15. A list of "frequently asked questions" about the project, posted by the Fed on Friday included several raised by Vought and also addressed by Powell during a recent hearing in Congress, when the Fed chief clarified, for example, that contrary to some press reports there were no private elevators being installed to carry Fed officials to a private dining room. The Eccles building, the Fed's main headquarters, was built during former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration. The neighboring site at 1951 Constitution Avenue, which dates to the administration of Roosevelt's predecessor, Herbert Hoover, had been used by a number of agencies before being turned over to the Fed in 2018 by the first Trump administration "enabling them to renovate this historic property," Trump's General Services Administration said in a press release at the time. "This transfer will put a vacant building back in productive use, allow the Federal Reserve Board to consolidate several leases and result in savings for taxpayers," it said.
The Age
28-06-2025
- Health
- The Age
Ozempic in a pill? The next generation of weight-loss drugs emerges
'The development of GLP-1 and incretin-based drugs has revolutionised the space. It has carved out the biggest class of drugs ever. And it has the power to truly revolutionise our health-span,' said Associate Professor Garron Dodd, head of the Metabolic Neuroscience Research Laboratory at the University of Melbourne and founder of Gallant Bio, which is developing its own obesity drugs. 'It's a glorious dawn, but it's just the start.' Weight loss in a pill Much as our eyes and ears sense the world and send data to our brains, our digestive tracts need ways of sending back data on what they are eating, and how much. They do this, in part, by secreting various chemical signals – hormones. Glucagon-like peptide-1 is secreted by the intestines and triggers the pancreas to produce insulin. The first GLP-1 drugs took advantage of this to become powerful treatments for diabetes. But GLP-1 has much wider effects beyond blood-sugar control. Receptors for the hormone spread throughout the body, even in the brain, where they trigger a feeling of fullness and decrease appetite. A once-weekly dose of semaglutide, plus lifestyle changes, led volunteers in a phase 3 trial to lose 14.9 per cent of their body weight over 15 months. GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy essentially copy that human hormone. That makes them fragile. They need to be kept refrigerated, and injected subcutaneously rather than taken by mouth – as the stomach's acid would quickly break them down. An oral version of semaglutide has been developed, but only 1 per cent of the drug actually makes its way to the target receptors, and it appears less effective than the injectable version for weight loss. Loading Researchers at Japan's Chugai Pharmaceutical Co figured out a way around this problem. They designed a small molecule that can bind to the same receptor as GLP-1 and trigger it. It mimics the effect without mimicking the structure. 'It's a development I never would have thought feasible,' said Professor Michael Horowitz, a University of Adelaide researcher who authored a commentary on the drug in the Lancet. Chugai licensed the molecule to US-based Eli Lilly in 2018. Last week, the company reported participants on the highest dose in a clinical trial lost 7.9 per cent of their body weight over 40 weeks. The full details of the trial have not yet been reported, and whether the weight loss is maintained over the longer term is unclear. More than a quarter of patients reported diarrhoea, 16 per cent nausea and 14 per cent vomiting. The preliminary results are 'close enough to broadly call it similar' to semaglutide, said Professor Jonathan Shaw, who led the Australian arm of Lilly's trial at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne. 'I don't think we can confidently say it's better or worse. It's definitely in the same ballpark.' It's also not known if the drug will offer the range of other benefits that GLP-1 inhibitors provide in addition to weight loss, like reductions in cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's risk (and maybe even addictive behaviours). Horowitz said the efficacy data was promising, but he wanted to see more information about adverse effects, which he said were understated generally across semaglutide trials because they relied on patients to report their own side effects. 'It hasn't served the interests of pharma to quantify how well this is tolerated.' Pfizer was developing a similar once-daily GLP-1 pill but cancelled the program in April after a patient in a clinical trial suffered liver damage. A pill should, theoretically, be cheaper and easier to make than an injector – Novo Nordisk, maker of Wegovy and its diabetes drug antecedent Ozempic, has struggled to keep up with demand for semaglutide – and dramatically easier to transport. At present, the drug must be kept refrigerated right from European factories to a patient's home. 'That all adds to the cost,' said Shaw. There could also be cost benefits from increased competition as more drugs are approved – possibly pushing the price down far enough for governments to consider subsidising it. Lilly expects to apply for regulatory approval for the drug later this year. While orforglipron has attracted the most excitement – Eli Lilly's shares have surged since they announced the trial results – it is just one of several new drugs in late-stage development. These drugs might be of particular value to 15 per cent or so of people whose bodies do not seem to respond to semaglutide. And people don't seem to stay on the injectable drugs – less than half are still using them a year later, per a study 2024 study – despite the fact weight rebound is likely if you stop using them. 'Is it the injection? Is it the cost? Or is it due to adverse effects? We don't know,' said Horowitz. The new drugs might also offer weight-loss benefits. Mounjaro, for example, mimics both GLP-1 and the gastric inhibitory polypeptide, which increases metabolism and appears to lead to better weight-loss results. The new drugs, like Lilly's retatrutide, target even more receptors, with the hope of even greater effects. It's all good news for Rochelle McDonald. She does not mind taking a weekly injection – 'the stabby-stab' – now she's found ways of coping with the side effects. But paying $240 a month for her current dose of the medicine is 'a commitment in itself'. 'I think a daily pill would be good,' she said. 'If it comes in at a good price point.'
