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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced her opposition to a set of bills easing derivatives requirements that garnered heavy bipartisan support in the House, arguing it is "no time to go backwards" on financial reform.

Warren is now throwing her high profile into what may be an uphill battle to prevent the changes to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, as the House Financial Services cleared the measures with overwhelming support from both parties.

A bipartisan group of 12 senators is seeking to exempt non-financial companies from new rules to make banking safer, breathing new life into efforts to reduce the scope of the Dodd-Frank overhaul of Wall Street.

The plans are squarely at odds with a warning from Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who urged the Republican-controlled House of Representatives this week not to make any changes to the broad law drawn up after the 2007-09 credit meltdown.

Nearly three years after Congress passed the Dodd-Frank financial law to limit risky activities on Wall Street, a series of bills could weaken regulation of derivatives — the exotic securities that helped fuel the crisis.

On Tuesday, the House Financial Services Committee passed six bills that limit reforms in the complex market of derivatives, including adding more flexibility for financial services companies that deal in them. A bipartisan group of lawmakers hailed the measures as necessary repairs to statutes that could hinder U.S. firms in doing business.

The new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission says she will review the agency’s policy of letting companies and individuals settle charges without admitting or denying wrongdoing.

Mary Jo White defended the policy at a budget hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill, saying it has enabled the government to quickly return money to investors without a trial. But White, who became chairman in April, told the panel she is reviewing it with the agency’s enforcement division to be certain.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday urged lawmakers to reject several proposals designed to roll back existing rules governing derivatives.

Jack Lew, the new Treasury secretary, made the recommendations in letters sent to the House financial services committee ahead of a scheduled Tuesday vote on the five bipartisan bills. Versions of some of the measures have been approved by the House in previous years, though none have passed the Senate.

Wall Street bankers and some of the world’s top finance ministers are waging a bitter international campaign to block Washington financial regulators from extending their policing powers far beyond the nation’s shores.

The effort — centered on oversight of the $700 trillion marketplace of the financial instruments known as derivatives — is just one front in the battle still being waged nearly three years after Congress passed the Dodd-Frank law, which revamped financial regulations in the United States in hopes of curtailing the risky trading practices blamed for the global financial crisis in 2008.