Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen yesterday resisted calls for more congressional oversight and intervention into the US central bank, as members of a House of Representatives panel criticised her and other policymakers for failing to be more accountable.

One Republican politician also continued his attack on the Fed’s response to a 2012 information leak, saying Ms Yellen and the central bank had failed to properly respond.

In her biannual testimony to Congress, Ms Yellen detailed the Fed’s flow of information to financial markets as well as its press conference and audit schedules as evidence that the central bank practiced a high level of transparency.

Ms Yellen pushed back against politicians’ calls to follow a single monetary policy rule rather than use its discretion.

“I think we need a systematic policy. But I would strongly resist agreeing to follow any rule where the stance of monetary policy depends on only the current readings of two economic variables, which is what your reference rule relies on,” Ms Yellen said.

Representative Sean Duffy, accusing the Fed of deliberately sweeping under the rug an investigation into the 2012 leak of market-sensitive information to a private financial newsletter.

Texas congressman Jeb Hensarling, the Republican chairman of the House financial services committee, demanded the Fed be more predictable and implored it to co-operate with the investigation.

“The Fed is not above the law,” Mr Hensarling said during his opening remarks.

He then turned up the heat on Ms Yellen, cutting her off several times and trying to push her to admit that the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law still allowed some banks to be too big to fail.

Ms Yellen stood firm, saying the law had limited the central bank’s emergency lending powers.

Financial markets did not react to Yellen’s remarks, which largely tracked the Fed policy-setting committee’s most recent statement in June. – (Reuters)