Obama identifies three possible Fed picks

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama is giving "strong consideration" to naming three officials to fill vacancies at the Federal Reserve board, the White House said Friday as he moves to revamp the central bank.San Francisco regional central bank chief Janet Yellen, a policy dove, is a "leading contender" to becoming number two at the board, under Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.Obama also gave strong billing to Pete Diamond, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) economist, and lawyer Sarah Bloom Raskin, a commissioner of financial regulation in the state of Maryland, in his bid to fill the two other vacancies, Gibbs said.Gibbs spoke to reporters when asked to confirm media reports that Obama wants to nominate Yellen to succeed current vice chairman Donald Kohn, who intends to retire when his four-year term expires in June.He indicated that if Yellen were the president's choice, she could be nominated before Kohn's term expired. He would not give a timetable for the other two nominees. All three nominations require Senate confirmation."We are hoping to fill the vacancy of the vice chair in time for the end of the current term, which is June, and I would say Sarah Raskin and Peter Diamond are also under strong consideration for additional vacancies," Gibbs said.Obama renominated Bernanke to a second four-year term last year and he was confirmed by the Senate in January after a divisive debate.Apart from backing Bernanke's reappointment, Obama tapped former Georgetown University law professor Daniel Tarullo to fill a vacancy on the board, just after becoming president in January 2009.By filling another three vacancies, Obama will have determined five of the seven places on the Fed's board of governors, which is responsible for implementing monetary policy as well as serving on the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets US interest rates.Yellen, 63, is seen by analysts as having strongly backed Bernanke's policy of virtually zero interest rates to boo

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