Among those speaking at the 10 a.m. House Financial Services Committee hearing will be Robert Steel, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for domestic finance, Brian Montgomery, the Housing and Urban Development assistant secretary who heads the Federal Housing Administration and Sandor Samuels, executive managing director of Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender.

The hearing comes as lawmakers and officials have been urging the mortgage industry to do more to identify and help people who risk losing their homes.

The Bush administration last month organized an industry coalition, dubbed Hope Now, to help homeowners whose mortgages are resetting at much higher rates. That group, which includes Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., plans to send letters this month to more than 200,000 borrowers in danger of default.

As many as 2 million households could be in danger of losing their homes over the next two years as their low introductory rate mortgages reset to much higher rates.

In addition, President Bush has pushed for expanded authority for the FHA, a Depression-era agency that insures loans made to low-income borrowers.

A bill authorizing the FHA to help borrowers with larger home loans has stalled in the Senate after passing the House in September. The FHA estimates it would enable the agency to extend new loans to 200,000 more homeowners.

Also scheduled to speak at the hearing are: Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, Ken Wade, chief executive of community organization network NeighborWorks America, Bruce Marks, chief executive of community group Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, Bill Longbrake, a senior policy adviser focusing on housing at the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry group.