Obama Seeks New Powers to Dismantle Non-Bank Firms

A year after Lehman Brothers collapsed, helping to trigger the worst financial crisis in seven decades, the Obama administration is pressing Congress for the power to dismantle other nonbank firms considered so large and influential that they could bring down the entire economy.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was asking a House panel on Thursday to pass legislation that would enable federal regulators to identify and monitor big financial firms and step in to wind them down before they collapse.

The proposal, worked out in an agreement with House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., also will give new powers to the Federal Reserve to enforce tougher requirements for these "too-big-to-fail" companies.