Elizabeth Warren, the Obama administration aide charged with setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, might have felt like an alien visiting an anxious planet yesterday when she went to the United States Chamber of Commerce, according to an article by Edward Wyatt in today's edition of The New York Times.

She told about 300 executives at the chamber's annual conference on capital markets that she does not consider herself in hostile territory because she believed they shared "a point of principle: competitive markets are good for consumers and for businesses," the article said, and she added that "markets don't work in the way they are supposed to unless there are some well-enforced rules."

"The detail and scope of those rules," the article continued, "are what worry the members of the chamber and some members of Congress, both of whom have been vocal in their criticism of the regulatory powers given to the new consumer agency by the Dodd-Frank Act, the financial regulation bill signed into law last July. The disagreements between Ms. Warren and one of her chief critics, Representative Spencer Bachus, Republican of Alabama and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, grew more heated hours after her address. Mr. Bachus accused Ms. Warren of mischaracterizing her recent participation in the mortgage service industry settlement talks."

The article said that Mr. Bachus released a seven-page document titled "Perspectives on Settlement Alternatives in Mortgage Servicing," which, in a letter to Ms. Warren, he said demonstrated that she had a larger role than she had indicated to the committee.

Jen Howard, a spokeswoman for the consumer agency, said that Ms. Warren correctly characterized her participation, and added that "she is aware that not everyone agrees with that advice or how to address the serious deficiencies at some of the nation's largest mortgage servicing firms."

Noting that he has introduced a bill to change the governance of the consumer bureau from a single director to a five-person, bipartisan commission, Mr. Bachus characterized the powers given to the head of the consumer agency as unmatched in government.

Ms. Warren was followed by Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive of the chamber, who warned that the consumer agency could choke off economic growth in the United States, and, according to the article, said that "if not used carefully, the C.F.P.B.'s tremendous power"to go after bad actors could cause serious collateral damage to America's job creators."

Ms. Warren, the article said, maintained that "the consumer bureau is 'the only bank regulator - and perhaps the only agency anywhere in government - whose rules can be overruled by a group of other agencies,' specifically the Financial Stability Oversight Council, composed of nine regulatory agency heads and an independent insurance industry expert. A two-thirds vote of the council is required to overturn a consumer agency rule. Ms. Warren also warned against making the agency subject to annual appropriations of Congress, saying it would inject politics into the regulatory structure and cause banks and other regulated agencies to lobby for looser oversight."