Washington - Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said late Friday that Congress was considering a short-term funding deal for the US automotive industry and that a vote on some sort of bail-out for the Big Three was expected by next week.

Congressional leaders are to spend the weekend ironing out a deal over how to help the US automotive industry survive the economic recession.

"Today's announcement of major job losses and findings from Congressional hearings from the last two days make it clear that Congress must work on a bipartisan basis to provide short-term and limited assistance to the automobile industry while it undertakes major restructuring," Pelosi said in a statement after a second day of hearings with car executives ended with no apparent agreement on the industry's request for 34 billion dollars in federal aid.

President George W Bush urged legislators to put a bill together by next week amid warnings that General Motors Corp, the world's largest carmaker, may not last beyond this year without help from the government.

Congressional leaders made no such promises, insisting they would only bring a bail-out bill to the floor of the Senate or House of Representatives if it had enough votes to be approved.

"With very few exceptions the members were saying we should do something," Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters. "We will now see whether we can put the bill together. If we have agreement, then we go to the floor."

However, Pelosi said later that she expects some sort of legislation to be brought up in the House next week.

Frank warned of an economic "disaster" if one of the Detroit-based Big Three were to declare bankruptcy.

The Bush administration and Republicans are at odds with Democrats, who hold a majority in Congress, over how to help the carmakers.

Bush has pushed for an existing 25-billion-dollar fund that was meant for energy improvements to be restructured. Democrats want 34 billion dollars taken out of a 700-billion-dollar financial rescue package passed in October.

Pelosi said late Friday that she was now open to retooling the funds for energy improvements so they could be used to rescue the carmakers, however said Democrats would not allow the funds to be used "unless there is a guarantee that those funds will be replenished in a matter of weeks so as not to delay that crucial initiative."

But many legislators from both parties remain reluctant to prop up an industry that has long failed to modernize and keep up with more energy-efficient foreign competitors. Some floated the possibility of a government oversight board that would take an active role in the companies' restructuring process.

"I am concerned about the viability of the automobile companies," Bush said. "And likewise, I am concerned about taxpayer money being provided to those companies that may not survive."

Executives from GM, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC have argued they were well on the way to recovery before the current economic recession struck. Car sales have plummeted to 25-year lows over the last two months as consumers struggled to get loans. (dpa)