Timothy Massad, the Treasury Department official responsible for overseeing the U.S. rescue of banks and automakers after the credit crisis, will be nominated to head the country's top derivatives regulator.

Massad, 57, will be nominated by President Barack Obama today to succeed Gary Gensler as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an agency with expansive new authority under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, according to a White House statement. His nomination requires Senate confirmation.

Massad would take over an agency that has put into place more than 60 rules to regulate trading by banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to help reduce risk and increase transparency in the swaps market after largely unregulated trades helped fuel the crisis. The rules have yet to all take effect as the agency battles budget challenges as a result of Republican efforts in Congress to block Obama administration efforts to increase its funding.