WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would keep consumer protection at the heart of his proposed overhaul of financial regulation, despite suffering a serious political setback in the U.S. Senate.

“It’s very important to have a consumer finance regulatory authority that is willing to actually enforce the law, so that people aren’t getting gouged,” Obama told ABC News in an interview marking his first year in office.

The White House separately said that Obama would discuss financial reform in remarks on Thursday after meeting in the Oval Office with Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who heads Obama’s economic recovery advisory board.

Obama’s desire for a new consumer financial protection agency and other parts of his ambitious reform agenda became even harder to achieve after his Democratic party on Tuesday lost its 60-seat Senate majority in an upset victory in Massachusetts by Republican Scott Brown.

Source by Reuters ( Alister Bull )