HIGHLIGHTS: Treasury's Paulson on financial rescue

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Wednesday held a briefing on the government's financial rescue package.

Following are highlights of his remarks.

ON CHANGING STRATEGY

"I will never apologize for changing an approach or strategy when the facts change."

ON PLAN FOR ASSET-BACKED SECURITIES LIQUIDITY FACILITY

"These things are complicated, so this will take in my judgment weeks to design and then it will take longer to get going. In terms of the size, decisions have not been made. This could be of significant size. It will need to be significant to make a difference."

ON EXPANDING TARP BEYOND FEDERALLY REGULATED BANKS

"What we are doing right now, we are ... making it available to banks and thrifts that have a federal regulator and that is where the focus is right now. If we go beyond that, there are certain advantages to going beyond it and there are implementation difficulties."

ON AID FOR AUTOMAKERS

"I believe the auto industry is important, critical industry in the country. We are very supportive of manufacturing. So again, it's a critical industry, manufacturing is critical to the country. Our position all the way along is that any solution is going to be a solution leading to viability. Any solution will be leading to long-term viability. What you have heard the administration say so far is that the 136, which is the $25 billion set aside for the auto sector, one option would be to amend that bill to make money available."

"I have said very clearly we need a solution but the solution has got to be one that leads to viability ... and again ... the intent of the TARP was to deal with the financial industry."

ON FDIC PROPOSAL ON FORECLOSURE MITIGATION

"When we look at the program you're mentioning, the FDIC program ... we're continuing to discuss and work through (it). But that is a subsidy or spending program" while TARP is an investment program.

ON WHETHER $700 BILLION PACKAGE LARGE ENOUGH

"I still am comfortable with $700 billion."

NOT ASKING FOR FINAL TRANCHE FROM $700 BILLION YET