I 
114TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 113 
To improve the accountability and transparency of the Board of Governors 
of the Federal Reserve System, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 6, 2015 
Mr. GARRETT introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To improve the accountability and transparency of the Board 
of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and for 
other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Federal Reserve Ac-
countability and Transparency Act of 2015’’. 
SEC. 2. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS. 
Section 11 of the Federal Reserve Act (12 U.S.C. 
248) is amended by inserting after subsection (l) the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(m) CONSIDERATION OF ECONOMIC IMPACTS.— 
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‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Before issuing any regula-
tion, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 
System shall— 
‘‘(A) clearly identify the nature and source 
of the problem that the proposed regulation is 
designed to address, as well as assess the sig-
nificance of that problem, to enable assessment 
of whether any new regulation is warranted; 
‘‘(B) assess the costs and benefits, both 
qualitative and quantitative, of the intended 
regulation and propose or adopt a regulation 
only on a reasoned determination that the bene-
fits of the intended regulation outweigh the 
costs of the regulation; 
‘‘(C) identify and assess available alter-
natives to the regulation that were considered, 
including modification of an existing regulation, 
together with an explanation of why the regula-
tion meets the regulatory objectives more effec-
tively than the alternatives; and 
‘‘(D) ensure that any regulation is acces-
sible, consistent, written in plain language, and 
easy to understand and shall measure, and seek 
to improve, the actual results of regulatory re-
quirements. 
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‘‘(2) CONSIDERATIONS AND ACTIONS.— 
‘‘(A) REQUIRED
ACTIONS.—In deciding 
whether and how to regulate, the Board shall 
assess the costs and benefits of available regu-
latory alternatives, including the alternative of 
not regulating, and choose the approach that 
maximizes net benefits. Specifically, the Board 
shall— 
‘‘(i) evaluate whether, consistent with 
obtaining regulatory objectives, the regula-
tion is tailored to impose the least burden 
on society, including market participants, 
individuals, businesses of differing sizes, 
and other entities (including State and 
local governmental entities), taking into ac-
count, to the extent practicable, the cumu-
lative costs of regulations; and 
‘‘(ii) evaluate whether the regulation 
is inconsistent, incompatible, or duplicative 
of other Federal regulations. 
‘‘(B) ADDITIONAL
CONSIDERATIONS.—In 
addition, in making a reasoned determination of 
the costs and benefits of a potential regulation, 
the Board shall, to the extent that each is rel-
evant to the particular proposed regulation, 
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take into consideration the impact of the regu-
lation on— 
‘‘(i) investor choice; 
‘‘(ii) market liquidity in the securities 
markets; 
‘‘(iii) small businesses; 
‘‘(iv) economic growth; 
‘‘(v) cost and access to capital; 
‘‘(vi) market stability; 
‘‘(vii) global competitiveness; 
‘‘(viii) job creation; 
‘‘(ix) rate of inflation; and 
‘‘(x) employment levels. 
‘‘(3) EXPLANATION
AND
COMMENTS.—The 
Board shall explain in its final rule the nature of 
comments that it received, including those from the 
industry or consumer groups concerning the poten-
tial costs or benefits of the proposed rule or pro-
posed rule change, and shall provide a response to 
those comments in its final rule, including an expla-
nation of any changes that were made in response 
to those comments and the reasons that the Board 
did not incorporate those industry group concerns 
related to the potential costs or benefits in the final 
rule. 
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