A top White House official says Elizabeth Warren is "obviously a candidate" to lead a new consumer protection agency.

David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Barack Obama, told reporters on Friday that Warren is a champion for consumers and middle-class families. He said she helped inform the consumer-protection efforts that are part of the giant financial reform bill that Congress sent to Obama on Thursday.

The legislation calls for the creation of a consumer protection agency. Axelrod said Warren is certainly a candidate to lead it, but not the only one.

Warren now heads the Congressional Oversight Panel, which has been a watchdog over the Treasury Department's bank bailout fund.

Obama is expected to sign the bill as early as Wednesday.