H.R. 3467: To enhance Federal Reserve transparency.

This bill requires the Federal Reserve Board to disclose on a more frequent basis information about emergency credit facilities, discount window lending programs, and open market operations. It also moves up the termination date of board-authorized credit facilities. The bill requires certain nonpublic data related to credit facilities be made available, with some limitations, to the appropriate congressional committees.

The bill revises the definition of a liquidity event. Currently, a liquidity event is defined as (1) an exceptional and broad reduction in the ability of financial market participants to sell financial assets without an unusual and significant discount or to borrow using financial assets as collateral without an unusual and significant increase in margin, or (2) an unusual and significant reduction in the ability of financial market participants to obtain unsecured credit. The bill eliminates this definition and instead requires the board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Department of the Treasury to define the term through a joint rulemaking.

Under the bill, Congress must be notified when the board or the FDIC makes a determination as to whether a liquidity event exists that warrants the use of a guarantee program (a program to guarantee obligations of insured depository institutions or holding companies during times of severe economic distress). The bill also requires congressional notification of the cost to the taxpayer of such guarantee program.

Written by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.