CEOs of Moderna, TikTok Head to the Hill for Hearings Today and Tomorrow
Both the House and Senate are in session today.
A lot happening in and around Congress for the remainder of the week. Take your pick as to what is most significant.
Today, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets to decide whether to raise interest rates again. The banking crisis of the past two weeks has focused attention on whether the Fed will continue to raise rates to fight persistent inflation, or ease off because of interest rate induced illiquidity in the banking sector. Most analysts expect the Fed will announce a 25 basis point increase in rates.
Also today, the Senate HELP Committee, chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders, will hold a hearing with Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel. Chairman Sanders has called the hearing to draw attention to Bancel’s compensation when the companies profits came from government support for Moderna’s mRNA Covid vaccine. Others on the committee will probe why the Justice Department intervened in a patent suit and asked the court to make taxpayers, not Moderna, liable for any patent infringements. The next day, Moderna announced it would make the vaccine available for free.
Tomorrow, another CEO, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He will try and fend off and counter bipartisan calls to ban Tik Tok in the United States. Tomorrow night, in prime time the Select Committee of the Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party will hold its second hearing, entitled, "The Chinese Communist Party's Ongoing Uyghur Genocide." The purpose of the hearing from Chairman Gallagher’s perspective is to cast the competition with the CCP not just as an economic competition but also as a clash of values. The House Budget Committee will host OMB director Shalanda Young in a hearing about the president’s FY ’24 budget proposal. The real topic will be the continuation of the political debate over how to raise the debt ceiling.
And former President Trump might get arrested … a busy week in and around Capitol Hill.
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