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By David Alexander
WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama pledged on Saturday to use a proposed $825 billion economic recovery package to create jobs, improve health care and expand renewable energy.
The new president, who took office on Tuesday with the United States in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, met with his economic advisers on Saturday after several days of lobbying lawmakers for quick passage of the stimulus package.
Obama's economic team also is working on a plan for the remaining half of a $700 billion bailout that Congress approved last year help U.S. financial firms. The plan is expected help distressed banks as well as providing aid for people who face losing their homes. The Washington Post said on Saturday the plan could go to Congress next week.
The White House did not immediately release details of what was discussed at the economic team meeting or who attended. Obama used his first weekly Internet and radio address as president to press the case for quick passage of the plan.
Saying more people filed for unemployment this week than at any time in the past 26 years, Obama warned joblessness could hit double digits and the economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity if nothing was done.
"If we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse," he said. Obama hopes to sign an economic recovery plan into law within a month.
The White House posted a four-page report outlining the impact of the stimulus plan on its website, www.whitehouse.gov, on Saturday morning. Aides said the report began to put "meat on the bones" of Obama's previously stated goals.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Obama said the economic recovery plan would save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs while investing in clean energy development, education and improving health care efficiency.
He said he intended to double the U.S. capacity to generate energy from renewable sources like wind, solar and biofuels, and also discussed building a new electricity grid with 3,000 miles (4,828 km) of transmission lines.
"We'll save taxpayers $2 billion a year by making 75 percent of federal buildings more energy efficient, and save the average working family $350 on their energy bills by weatherizing 2.5 million homes," Obama said.
The plan also includes a Clean Energy Financing Initiative with loan guarantees and other financing mechanisms that aim to encourage $100 billion in clean energy financing in three years, an aide said.
The president said the economic recovery program included funds to computerize the nation's health records in five years, which he said would save billions of dollars in health care costs and countless lives.
The recovery program includes what one aide said was "the single largest investment in preventive health care in our nation's history" to ensure people receive immunizations and get help to stop smoking and reduce obesity. Officials did not place a dollar figure on the program.
Obama said the plan included financing to modernize or renovate 10,000 schools and provide grants for 4 million university students.
Funds also would be used to repair U.S. roadways and expand the country's mass transit systems, to provide better security at 90 major U.S. ports and to build more effective communications networks for police and other safety officials.
"I know that some are skeptical about the size and scale of this recovery plan," Obama said. To ensure accountability and transparency, the administration will post details of the spending programs on a website called recovery.gov.
NEW YORK, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The Obama administration plans to tighten the nation's financial regulatory system, including stricter federal rules for hedge funds, credit rating agencies and mortgage brokers, the New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
The broad changes include increased oversight of the complex financial instruments that helped spawn the current economic crisis, the newspaper said on its website Saturday night.
The newspaper based its story on interviews with officials as well as confirmation hearings for senior administration appointees, and a recent report by an international committee led by Paul Volcker, one of President Obama's chief economic advisers.
These officials want rules that would eliminate conflicts of interest at credit rating agencies that gave top investment grades to the ultimately shaky financial instruments that have been one source of market turmoil.
The officials pointed out that under the present system, the agencies are paid by companies to help them structure financial instruments -- which the agencies then grade.
"Until we deal with the compensation model, we're not going to deal with the conflict of interest and people are not going to have confidence that the ratings are worth relying on, worth the paper they're printed on," the newspaper quoted the newly confirmed Securities and Exchange Commission head Mary Schapiro as saying.
Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner made similar written and verbal comments before Senate Finance Committee, it said.
The officials said the Obama administration has embraced one of the themes of the Volcker report as a guiding principle -- that major companies and financial instruments that are mostly unsupervised must be brought back under a larger regulatory umbrella.
While some actions will be require legislation, others should be achievable through regulations adopted by federal agencies, the Times said.
FEDERAL STANDARDS FOR BROKERS
The administration plans to propose new federal standards for mortgage brokers who issued often unsuitable loans, but have been mostly regulated by the states. They are also considering having the SEC become more involved in supervising the underwriting standards of mortgage-backed securities, it added.
Other goals include requiring that derivatives like credit default swaps -- insurance against loan defaults which were central to the financial collapse -- be traded through a central clearinghouse and possibly on one or more exchanges.
Additionally, the plan may include a broader role for the Federal Reserve in protecting the economy from companies whose troubles pose systemwide risks, as the report issued this month under Volcker proposed.
Officials have also begun studying ways to control executive compensation, the Times said.
Another component will provide the strategy for how the government will go about shoring up the flagging banking industry, the newspaper said.
Senior aides vow to move quickly on the new financial regulatory plan, it said.
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