WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner went to a conservative leaning thing tank yesterday to make the case for revamping financial regulations in a manner that provides "strong protection for consumers, strong constraints on risk taking by large institutions and strong tools to protect the economy and taxpayers from future crises."

At the same time as the Senate Banking Committee was voting out a bill to revamp financial regulation, Geithner told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute, that comprehensive reform, including a new consumer financial regulator, would provide market stability.

Geithner dismissed objections raised by some lobbyists for the financial services industry that the regulators responsible for ensuring safety and soundness should also protect consumers. He said the existing system "produced terrible failures in consumer protection."