By Deborah Solomon
Mary Miller, a top U.S. Treasury Department official who played
a key role managing U.S. debt markets and overseeing the financial
regulatory overhaul, plans to step down from her post in early
September, according to the Treasury Department.
News of Ms. Miller's resignation was announced internally today.
She is currently Treasury's Under Secretary for Domestic Finance.
The Obama administration hasn't yet decided on a successor.
"For over four years, Mary has worked tirelessly on behalf of
the American people, leading our department's efforts to tackle
some of the most difficult challenges facing our country," Treasury
Secretary Jacob Lew said in a statement. "From the debt limit
debates and the intricacies of debt management to financial reform
and housing finance, Mary has been committed to strengthening our
country, improving our financial system and lifting obstacles for
working Americans."
Since joining Treasury in 2010, Ms. Miller has played a central
role in the administration's increasingly frequent negotiations
with Congress over whether to raise the so-called debt ceiling,
which limits the amount of government borrowing. As the U.S. bumped
up against that limit Ms. Miller has had to manage the nation's
debt to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its obligations,
including using so-called "extraordinary measures" to shift
government funds between accounts so the U.S. could continue paying
its bills.
She spearheaded the creation of so-called floating rate
securities--Treasury's first new debt product in 15 years--which is
partially aimed at offsetting risk associated with a looming wave
of government debt coming due. The note are also somewhat of a
hedge on the future direction of the economy, allowing the rates on
the floating notes to stay low if the economy remains weak, rather
than paying a fixed rate.
Ms. Miller is perhaps best known on Wall Street for her
regulatory reform role. Since the Dodd-Frank Act was signed into
law nearly four years ago, she has tried to coordinate the
sometimes fractious agencies tasked with writing hundreds of rules.
She spent months pushing regulators to reach agreement on the
Volcker rule, which bans banks from making risky bets with their
own money and took more than three years to finalize. More
recently, Ms. Miller has been pushing six federal agencies to
finish writing mortgage standards intended to boost the quality of
loans. That rule is expected to be finalized in the coming
months.
Her work hasn't come without controversy: Ms. Miller has a
played a large role in establishing the Dodd Frank-created
Financial Stability Oversight Council, which must determine whether
any large, nonfinancial firms should be considered for designation
as "systemically important" and drawn in for Federal Reserve
oversight. The FSOC's move to consider whether large asset managers
such as BlackRock Inc. and Fidelity Investments pose systemic risk
has been blasted by the industry and Ms. Miller has tried to combat
the criticism by assuring markets no decision has yet been
made.
"It's a bit of an overreaction [to] certainly the public
statements that we've made," she said at a government-led
conference on asset managers last month.
Ms. Miller, who has been commuting to Washington from her home
in Baltimore for 4 1/2 years, didn't intend to stay through the end
of the Obama administration and wanted to give Mr. Lew--and
President Barack Obama--the opportunity to pick a successor who
could have at least two years in the job, according to people
familiar with her thinking.
Before coming to Treasury Ms. Miller, 53, spent 26 years at T.
Rowe Price Group, Inc., where she headed the fixed income division
and sat on the firm's management committee.
Write to Deborah Solomon at deborah.solomon@wsj.com
