The Obama administration made gains on Tuesday in its push for US financial reform, unveiling a landmark bill to tackle systemic risk in the economy and winning congressional committee approval for a measure to expose hedge funds to more government scrutiny.

The systemic risk bill would grant vast powers to a new systemic risk regulatory council, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp to monitor and address risks to economic stability posed by shaky financial holding companies.

Those deemed severely undercapitalized by the council could be restructured or even shut down by regulators. Managers could be dismissed, credit exposures limited, pay and bonuses restricted, acquisitions and new ventures blocked.

In a measure meant to reverse decades of weakened oversight of Wall Street and the banks, the bill aggressively asserts government power to prevent bailouts like last year's rescues of AIG, Citigroup and Bank of America.

It also attempts to shift the cost of future financial stabilization efforts toward industry and away from taxpayers by forcing financial firms with more than $10 billion in assets to foot the bill for any losses from Federal Deposit Insurance Corp actions to resolve the problems of failing firms.

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the bill was urgent and crucial to prevent excessive risk-taking by big firms.

"We cannot meet these tests with a set of small changes at the margin," Obama said in a letter to Barney Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, that also stressed the importance of building a stronger financial system in which no firm was "too big to fail."

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