For 57 years, from the "Accord" of 1951 which freed the Fed from pegging Interest rates on Treasury securities to help WWII financing and after, to 2008, the main tool of Fed control was open market operations (OMO). As a result of the banking crisis of 2008 the Fed was authorized to pay interest on bank reserves (IOR) (bank cash and equlvalents) on Oct 3. 2008 as part of the Emergency Stablllzallon Act. The subsequent bailout quantitative easings (QEs) have caused two problems; bank excess reserves have gone from $2 bllllon in 2006 to 2.3 trillion currently. This huge hoard has driven short term interest rates to near zero (the zero bound ZB). The QEs also have distorted the FED’s balance sheet so that it cannot eliminate the huge hoard or excess reserves causing the zero bound. Therefore, at the moment, the only way the Fed can raise short term rates is by paying interest on excess reserves (IOER) which sets a floor on the federal funds and bank loan rates. This paper traces the history of IOR and its component IOER. There is some opposition to IOER and we believe  that IOER  will  have unintended consequences.