Washington ? House GOP leaders, risking a backlash from a disgruntled public and even some of their own members, will fight several of the Senate’s proposed restrictions on fraudulent accounting practices that have rocked Wall Street and frightened investors, key legislators said Tuesday.

One day after the Senate unanimously passed a broad overhaul of corporate and securities laws, top House Republicans said they would try to delay, and likely dilute, some of the proposed changes.

“The Senate bill is not a good bill and has major flaws,” said Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, who will represent House Republicans in final negotiations over the legislation. “Everything is going to be on the table.”

As the stock market dipped lower Tuesday, hopes for swift enactment of new accounting laws appeared jeopardized by House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s decision to reject the Senate bill. It also gave accounting industry lobbyists more time to press their congressional allies for leniency.

Lobbyists representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and accounting firms already were roaming the congressional halls looking for help.

Several rank-and-file Republicans pleaded with Hastert, R-Ill., to adopt the Senate legislation immediately, which would allow Congress to turn its attention to other matters, such as creating a new Department of Homeland Defense. President Bush has called on Congress to send him a package of corporate accounting reforms before August, although several GOP aides said the White House did not lobby Republicans to embrace the Senate bill.

Starting today, a small group of House and Senate conferees will meet behind closed doors to hammer out a compromise between those who back the Senate’s more stringent proposals and those Republicans who want to modify them.

The Senate bill, authored by Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., would create an independent board with new enforcement powers to oversee the accounting industry. It would prohibit most firms from providing consulting services to companies they audit a practice that landed Arthur Andersen at the center of the latest financial scandals.

The Senate bill would give federal prosecutors new tools to track down and punish corporate criminals. It would require top executives to certify their financial statements, which would be more closely scrutinized than before.

Several House Republicans said Tuesday they opposed the creation of an independent oversight agency.

“There’s major concern with an independent body with government power that would be in competition with the SEC,” or Securities and Exchange Commission, Oxley said.

Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., called the plan “ill-advised.”

Some key Republicans want to clarify and in some cases, water down Senate provisions that would subject corporations and their executives to new lawsuits, including one measure that would give shareholders more time to sue corporations. Baker said there’s more than a half-dozen new “actionable items” in the Senate bill that “are not in the interest of taxpayers or shareholders.”

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., predicted it will take two months to reach a compromise.

Political calculations in both parties are complicating efforts for a quick resolution. Tuesday, House Republicans sought some political cover by rushing through a bill that’s even tougher than the Senate legislation when it comes to penalizing corporate criminals.

It’s unclear if those provisions will be incorporated during final House-Senate negotiations.