WASHINGTON -- At September's G-20 economic summit, President Barack Obama announced that the group would become the principal framework for tackling the world's economic challenges.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner yesterday told lawmakers that commitment should remain in place for the long term, making it perhaps the most significant legacy of the Pittsburgh summit.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the G-20 and its role, Mr. Geithner said that the group -- including developing countries and expanded from G-7s and G-8s of years past -- is far from perfect, but it will endure.

"We've made it a valuable enough forum that people want to come, which is a good test," Mr. Geithner said.

"There's a stability around our arrangement now. If you keep changing the seats at the table, you won't have the kind of continuity you need."

It is too early to judge the success or failure of the agreement issued at the end of the summit, which offered promises without many specifics aimed at encouraging stable world economic growth and reforming financial institutions that precipitated the most recent collapse.

Mr. Geithner used his testimony to urge Congress to pass significant regulatory reforms to empower his agency and others to better protect against another economic crisis. That process is still in its early stages in the House of Representatives and Senate.

"Together, Congress and the administration have a critical role to play in showing the world that we are serious about critical financial reforms, strong trade and investment, and fiscal consolidation," Mr. Geithner said.

But such reforms mean little unless replicated by partner nations, where, as Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., pointed out, "It sounds like there's not a lot happening."

Mr. Geithner said he didn't see a need for any enforcement mechanism for the agreements.

European nations have been pushing for strict limits on executive compensation, which the U.S. has been more reticent to support. Mr. Geithner said corporations should have to submit their executive salaries to shareholders for a vote, and he said he was proud of the pay limits the government has imposed on companies that took bailouts.

Mr. Geithner stressed the need for oversight of institutions like investment banks, which weren't treated like traditional banks but should have been.

"We need to move on the reform agenda while the memory of the crisis is still acute," Mr. Geithner said. "If you wait too long you won't have as much support."

The treasury secretary said he's starting to see progress at home and abroad in terms of economic stability, as the U.S. is moving to export more and developing nations increase their imports.

The G-20 also promised coordination on issues of global food security and climate change -- a major issue for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the Foreign Relations chair who co-authored the Senate climate change legislation.

"Banks deciding whether to fund major energy projects in developing countries, particularly middle-income countries, should take care not to lock them into a high-carbon future that will be costly for all of us -- and especially devastating for the world's poorest," Mr. Kerry said.

Mr. Geithner agreed that funds from institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank should push developing nations toward a greener future.

Continuing with next year's G-20 in Ontario, Canada, it will be a future in which those nations have a more significant say in the global economy. Mr. Kerry pointed to Mr. Obama's trip this week to Asia as further proof of the importance of expanding beyond the post-World War II economic order.

"It is certainly true that the rise of the so-called BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- represents a fundamental global economic shift," Mr. Kerry said. "Twenty years ago, the president's most important global financial trip would have been to Europe. Today it is to Beijing."

Washington correspondent Daniel Malloy writes the "Pittsburgh On The Potomac" blog exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.