It was rallying allies to amend the financial reform bill to exclude U. S. manufacturers from oversight historically reserved for banks, General Electric has said.

The 1,400-page reform bill in debate in the Senate would form a council of regulators charged with identifying companies so big that their failure would ripple through the entire financial system.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that if the council saw a failure of a company was likely, it could be charged with steering it toward liquidation or, in the case of financial firms, it could direct a regulatory agency, like the Federal Reserve, to mandate the firm put more capital in reserve to protect investors or clients against losses.

GE, which lends billions of dollars to consumers each year through a subsidiary, wants to have companies that are primarily manufacturers exempted.

Raj Date, executive director of the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy, said "This is a "Save GE' kind of amendment."

Heather McGhee, director of the Washington office of Demos, a think tank, said that the amendment is one that would protect profits at companies like Harley-Davidson, Caterpillar and John Deere, but put economic stability at risk.

She said, "We don't want to have another financial crisis because a last-minute amendment unwound the entire regulatory framework." (With inputs from Agencies)