A new consumer protection agency highlights a financial system overhaul President Barack Obama plans to unveil today in an effort to avert future economic crises, the Associated Press reported.

Under Obama’s plan, the Federal Reserve would gain power to supervise holding companies and large financial institutions considered so big that their failure could undermine the nation’s financial system. But even as it gains new powers, the Fed also would lose some of its authority over banking to a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

Obama’s proposal would require the Fed, which now can independently use emergency powers to bail out failing banks, to first obtain Treasury Department approval before extending credit to institutions in “unusual and exigent circumstances.”

According to a Reuters report, a senior administration official said yesterday that the Obama plan will call for closing the Office of Thrift Supervision, a Treasury Department unit, and eliminating the federal charter under which savings and loans operate, with the objective of streamlining bank supervision.

In conjunction with the Fed’s authority over large financial institutions and the new consumer agency, Obama also will propose:

– Additional protections for investors, including greater disclosure by hedge funds; regulation of credit default swaps and over-the-counter derivatives that previously operated outside government oversight; and new conditions on brokers and originators of asset-backed securities.

– A system for the orderly disposition of any troubled, interconnected firm whose failure posed a risk to the entire financial system, together with rules that insist that financial institutions hold more capital to avoid over-leveraging.

Christina Romer, who heads the Council of Economic Advisers, called it an “appropriate balance” and said the administration was “not bulldozing the whole system.”

But House Republican Leader John Boehner said that it would have “the federal government deciding what interest ought to be charged on credit cards” and what financial products are available.

“I think it’s just going to be too big of a foot on an industry that already is having financial problems,” Boehner said in an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” this morning.