WRAPUP 1-Obama administration faults Senate bank bill

* U.S. Treasury: Fed best agency to oversee biggest firms

* Wolin: Fed needs supervisory role for crisis response

* White House adviser questions Dodd super-regulator plan

By David Lawder and Corbett B. Daly

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Friday pushed back against a proposal in the U.S. Senate to create a single bank super-regulator and strip the Federal Reserve of its supervisory powers.

U.S. Deputy Treasury Neal Wolin firmly backed the Fed as the premier banking regulator in a speech to lawyers, saying this function was critical for its role as a lender of last resort.

"No regulator had a perfect record leading up to the crisis," Wolin told an American Bar Association committee. "But in our view, the Federal Reserve is the agency best equipped for the task of supervising the largest, most complex firms."

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd on Tuesday proposed consolidating bank supervisory powers into a single agency, which would strip the Fed of its role as a direct bank supervisor.

U.S. lawmakers are shaping far-reaching legislation to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis that nearly paralyzed the banking system last year.

Dodd's proposal went beyond a separate effort moving through the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. Whatever emerges in the House and Senate will need to be reconciled before going to President Barack Obama to sign into law.

Wolin did not mention Dodd by name, but he said the Fed's supervisory role gave it a deep understanding of and timely access to information about the banking sector, payment systems and capital markets. He added this was important for its role as lender of last resort.

"Stripped of its supervisory role, the Fed would not have timely and complete information in a crisis," said Wolin, who has taken a lead role for Treasury in negotiating reform legislation with Congress.

LEGISLATIVE DELAYS

White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, also speaking on Friday, said Dodd's proposal may take too long to implement.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by Bloomberg, Goolsbee characterized Dodd's plan as creating an agency similar to Britain's consolidated regulatory agency, the Financial Services Authority, which has come under some criticism for failing to rein in risky activity.

"I would say first as a general statement they had a lot of problems in the UK, as well, so I don't think the division of what box goes where is the central" issue in creating a strong regulatory framework, Goolsbee said.