Congress to quiz Fed's Hoenig about systemic risk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers will quiz Kansas City Federal Reserve President Thomas Hoenig next week about systemic risk in the U.S. financial system, in a rare summons of a regional Fed president before Congress.

The Joint Economic Committee will hear from Hoenig, as well as Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Simon Johnson.

The hearing, at 10 a.m. April 21, will be on "Too Big to Fail or Too Big to Save? Examining the Systemic Threats of Large Financial Institutions."

Hoenig, a former banking supervisor, has been a harsh critic of the government's approach to the financial crisis. He bluntly argued in a speech last month called "Too Big Has Failed" that this would result in a drift toward piecemeal bank nationalization, with no resolution of the crisis.

Governors from the Federal Reserve Board in Washington are regular witnesses before Congress, but the chiefs of the Fed's 12 regional banks are seldom called upon to share their views. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was summoned last year while president of the New York Federal Reserve to discuss the rescue of investment bank Bear Stearns.

(Reporting by Alister Bull; Editing by Leslie Adler)