Trump appointees pushed more marble in Federal reserve building renovation

President Donald Trump has looked to the marble finishes and hefty price tag of the Federal Reserve headquarters to claim grounds to fire Chair Jerome Powell, but the extensive use of marble in the building is, at least in part, the result of policies backed by Trump himself.

As the Fed moved forward with plans to renovate its Great Depression-era headquarters in Washington during Trump’s first term, it faced concerns in 2020 during a vetting process involving Trump appointees, who called for more “white Georgia marble” for the facade of building.

The Fed’s architects said the central bank wanted glass walls to reflect the Fed as a transparent institution, but three Trump appointees to a local commission felt marble best fit the building’s historic character. Marble was added as a result, according to the minutes of the Commission of Fine Arts, which advises the federal government on architecture.

The marble does not explain the roughly $600 million in cost overruns for the Fed headquarters and another nearby office building, now budgeted to cost $2.5 billion.

FTC tosses orders against Exxon, Chevron board appointments

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission set aside orders barring long-time shale bosses Scott Sheffield and John Hess from joining the boards of Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp.

The agency had blocked both Sheffield, who founded Pioneer Natural Resources Co., and Hess, who is the chief executive of Hess Corp., saying they sought to communicate with OPEC about oil pricing and output.

Both Sheffield and Hess had denied they colluded with OPEC. Exxon bought Pioneer last year for $63 billion. Chevron’s proposed $53 billion takeover of Hess is still pending, awaiting the outcome of an arbitration case filed by Exxon over a stake in a massive Guyana oil field.

Chevron and Hess jointly petitioned the FTC to remove its ban on John Hess, while Sheffield filed his request on his own. The requests came just weeks after President Donald Trump fired the agency’s two Democratic commissioners and Republican dissenters from the Sheffield and Hess rulings assumed the majority.

Court: FTC commissioner firing illegal

A federal court ruled Thursday that President Donald Trump’s firing of a Democratic commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission was illegal and that she was a “rightful member” of the agency.

In March, Trump dismissed Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, an FTC commissioner, and her colleague, Alvaro Bedoya, from their positions as he asserted control over agencies that regulate companies and workplaces. The move challenged long-standing legal precedent that members of the FTC can be fired only for a narrow set of reasons.

Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in her ruling Thursday that because “those protections remain constitutional, as they have for almost a century, Ms. Slaughter’s purported removal was unlawful and without legal effect.”

Compiled from Associated Press, Bloomberg and New York Times reports.