Treasury eyes stronger powers for Fed By Gillian Tett in London and Krishna Guha in Washington Published: April 29 2008 23:23 | Last updated: April 29 2008 23:23 The Federal Reserve could use proposed new regulatory powers to try to stop credit and asset market excesses from reaching the point where they threaten economic stability, the US Treasury said on Tuesday. David Nason, assistant secretary for financial institutions, said the Fed could even use its proposed âmacro-prudentialâ authority to order banks, hedge funds and other entities to curtail strategies that put financial stability at risk.