Tremendous progress made on bailout: Rep. Kanjorski

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke (C) is greeted by committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank (L) and Rep. Paul Kanjorski (R) at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington July 10, 2008.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Congress is making "tremendous progress" on a U.S. bank bailout bill, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, the chairman of the House of Representative's subcommittee on capital markets, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, told CNBC on Thursday.

An agreement on a bailout bill is "almost an accomplished fact," and votes are there for both U.S. House and Senate passage, Kanjorski said.

The bill is to include warrants, mortgage relief for homeowners, and curbs on compensation, he said.

"All the leadership of the Democratic party that aren't in office but have served in these high offices and make these decisions are in basic agreement with all the leadership of this administration that this has to be done and how it's proposed to be done," he said.

"So we have that agreement. We don't have any bickering here," added Kanjorski, who chairs the capital markets subcommittee of the House's Financial Services Committee.

The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, said late Wednesday that House and Senate Democrats reached a deal among themselves on provisions that should be in bill and planned to meet with Republicans at 10 a.m. (1400 GMT).

President George W. Bush delivered a televised address to the nation on Wednesday night and said he will press for agreement on the bailout of U.S. financial firms on Thursday in an emergency meeting with lawmakers at 4 p.m..

Just weeks before Americans go to the polls to elect their next president, critics have expressed concern that a bailout will let freewheeling bankers get off too lightly, and doubts have surfaced over whether the plan can solve the wider credit crisis.

(Reporting by Dena Aubin; Editing by Walker Simon)