as we design the dodd-frank regulations, in all of these areas we re doing our very best to address in these areas you ve mentioned issues that have been raised and that we consider quite appropriate. it makes sense to me that congress should consider these areas as well. i want to assure you that we will do our best in writing regulations in these areas, however, to address the concerns that have been raised. thank you. i appreciate your attention to it. i also believe that you need additional clarification and strength in the statute to do it right. i hope that we ll be able to provide that from congress. next, in numerous hearings last year it was revealed that we ed dot there are no undue oues t interruptions after they finalized the proposal for the banking organizations last week, the european commissioner s office issued a statement that the fed rule conflicts with the standards on the cross-border cooperation in the bank resolution. what concrete steps are you takin
measures of asset prices and whether or not they appear to be diverging from historical norms. namely it s hard but trying to spot any asset price bubbles that might be emerging. we re looking at leverage, which build up in leverage can be very dangerous to the financial system and pose stability risks. we re looking at trends in leverage. we re looking at credit growth to see whether or not that has potentially worrisome trends. in addition to that we re looking the particularly through the stress tests at financial institutions and a low interest rate environment. we have to worry about whether or not they re appropriately dealing with interest rate risk ls. we have been looking at that and, in fact, our current stress test includes a special portion related to and as you re looking and i m going to run out of time and our chairman is very punctual, have you found anything yet that gives you concern? do you have a tool with the zero interest rate policy to address tha
emphasized, and i agree, there is no need to bring down the size of our portfolio in order to tighten monetary policy. we have a range of tools that we can use to raise the level of short-term interest rates at the time that the committee deems it appropriate to begin to tighten monetary policy conditions. that s a way off. but we continue to develop tools to make sure that we have an arsenal of tools to be able to, as appropriate, tighten conditions, and not have to do asset sales or manage our portfolio in any way that would be disruptive to financial markets. if i can shift now to the regulatory side of your duties here as chair of the fed, board of governors. bozal three is supposed to be in effect, is it not in 15, 2015? i believe so. adjustments for capital, flexibility, capital liquidity, so to speak. is that correct? i believe so. senator crapo mentioned the foreign banks and so forth. will you as a regulator make sure that the foreign banks comply with the
discussion about about inflation and concerns and i know senator shelby asked you some questions about quantitative easing. but we addressed in your confirmation process the concern about markets overheating and long-term zero interest rate policy. maybe the threat on the front end isn t inflation. maybe it is instability in the financial markets. i m wondering if you ve refined any thinking about how you may address that should it occur. well, senator, i agree that an environment of low rates, low interest rates, especially when it p prevails for a long time, and we have had a long period of low interest rates can give rise to behavior that poses threats to financial stability. and therefore we need to be looking at that very carefully. and we are doing so in a very thorough way, i believe. there are a number of things that we are monitoring. measures of asset prices and whether or not they appear to be diverging from historical norms. namely it s hard but trying to spot