The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Lisa D. Cook to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in a 51-50 vote with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote in Ms. Cook's favor.
President Joe Biden nominated Ms. Cook, a professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University, in January and the Senate Banking Committee advanced her nomination in March.
She is the first Black woman to be confirmed to the seven-member Fed board. She will complete the remainder of a 14-year term that started in February 2010. The seat was originally held by Janet Yellen before she was Fed chair and eventually Treasury secretary.
The initial attempt to end debate on Ms. Cook's nomination on April 26 failed in the Senate with Republicans unified in opposition and a couple of Democrats unable to vote due to COVID-19 protocols. The Senate successfully ended debate on her nomination Tuesday, shortly before confirming her to the board.
She will join a central bank trying to rein in persistently high inflation. The Federal Open Market Committee raised interest rates for the second time in consecutive meetings on May 4, the latter time by 50 basis points after a quarter-point increase in March, in an effort to combat inflation.
Mr. Biden still has three other Fed nominees before the Senate. Chairman Jerome H. Powell, who has served on the Fed board since 2012 and was confirmed as chairman in 2018, has been renominated; Michael S. Barr, a law professor at the University of Michigan, has been nominated as the Fed's vice chairman for supervision; and Philip N. Jefferson, vice president for academic affairs, dean of faculty and the Paul B. Freeland professor of economics at Davidson College, has been nominated to the Fed board.
Both Mr. Powell's and Mr. Jefferson's nominations have advanced out of committee and are awaiting consideration in the full Senate, though votes have yet to be scheduled. Mr. Barr was nominated in April, and his confirmation hearing has yet to be scheduled.
