(Reuters) – U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod brown expects that hearings will be held in January on nominees for President Joe Biden’s top Federal Reserve positions. This is according to an Ohio senator spokesperson.

Biden nominated Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for a fourth four-year term. He also selected Fed Governor Lael Mindard to fill the vacant post of vice-chair at the central banking. The Senate must approve nominees before they can be considered for consideration by the whole Senate. Powell will be retiring at the end of his current term in February.

Alysa James (Brown’s spokesperson), wrote Tuesday in an email, “My boss said January.”

Hearings are likely to occur at an important moment in monetary policies, when the Fed moves from extraordinary accommodative measures it implemented to fight the recession that was triggered by coronavirus pandemics to gradually tightening its policy.

This week’s Fed policy meeting is scheduled. Powell is expected to meet with his colleagues and discuss the acceleration of the end-of-the central bank’s bond-buying programme. It should be finished by March or April. This would allow for the Fed to increase interest rates soon enough to reduce inflation, which is currently at over twice the Fed’s goal of 2%.

Both Powell and Brainard did not win unanimous approval when they were nominated for current positions in the 2012 and 2014 respective years.

Powell’s renomination has been opposed publicly by only two senators, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and Republican Senator Tom Cotton. The nominations must be approved by both the Senate Banking Committee and the entire Senate with a simple majority vote.

The White House announced Tuesday that Biden will nominate more candidates for Fed positions by the end this month.