Press conference exchange between STEVE MATTHEWS and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Chair Powell, Treasury Secretary Yellen, in a memo to her employees yesterday, spoke of the close working relationship with the Federal Reserve. And I’m wondering how you would describe the relationship with, with Treasury under Chair Yellen, if you’ve met with, with, with Treasury Secretary Yellen and, and/or President Biden since he has taken office. And, you know, secondly, about that, as you know, in the last four years, there was constant criticism from the—of the Fed from the President and from other officials of the Administration. Do you have any assurance or expectation that this will now be more of a hands-off attitude, in terms of commenting on monetary policy from the Administration?

assistant: Okay. So I have the highest respect and admiration for Secretary Yellen. And I’m, I’m sure that we’re going to have a, a good working relationship together. Absolutely sure. We’ll also have a good institutional relationship between the Fed and the Treasury. And I expect ’ll be very good and, and very productive. It’ll be collaborative. We’ll work together. Now, the way that works is, is that, you know, we know—the agencies know each other well, and this is true of finance ministries and central banks around the world. We know to stay in our lanes. We know we have different authorities. We know that we work together on some things to—you know, for the benefit of the public. And I’m, I’m absolutely sure that we’re going to do that. I, you know, haven’t—I haven’t spoken to, to Secretary Yellen—I’m going to be calling her “Chair Yellen” most of the time, so you just have to be patient with me—Secretary Yellen. I haven’t spoken to her since I congratulated her on being nominated. I do expect very soon to begin our regular calls or—and, and ultimately meetings, which have gone on, really, for, you know, 70 years. The Treasury Secretary and the, and the Fed Chair have had weekly or so meetings, lunches, breakfast, calls, depending on the situation. So I expect that will—that will happen soon. I’ve—I have not met the, the President, President Biden. And just, you know, I, I, I don’t—I don’t have any comment on your—on your last question. I wouldn’t want to comment one way or the other.

user: Just to follow up briefly, you have some 13(3) emergency programs that will expire March 31 that the Fed and the Treasury have worked on together. Do you have an expectation of whether those will be left, left to expire then or whether they will be extended?

assistant: So I—I’ll just say that I think our facilities were very successful in supporting the economy during its darkest moments and I believe saved—protected the loss of millions of jobs. We’re going to continue to monitor financial and credit conditions throughout the economy. And, and if the emergency conditions arise that are required under that law, then our emergency lending tools will remain available. Now, I’ve had no discussions with anybody at Treasury on that, because I haven’t had any discussions with anybody at Treasury other than meet—you know, high-level meetings with the—with the transition team a month or so ago. And once we start having those, those meetings, of course, I’ll observe, you know, the long-standing practice of not talking about confidential discussions. But as of now, there haven’t been any discussions at all.