1.   And executives could gain even more room to distort their numbers if the accounting board allows good will to stay on the books.

2.   Another bill in the House would require federal securities regulators to approve any new rule proposed by the accounting board.

3.   But any debate is unlikely to be as bloody as what the accounting board endured several years ago when it considered making companies expense all stock option programs.

4.   But the accounting board seems to be marshaling strong support from outside its ranks as well as from the Financial Accounting Foundation, which supports and oversees the group.

5.   By June, the accounting board expects to propose tighter rules on when companies can leave investments in related partnerships and trusts off their financial statements.

6.   Greenspan had joined the banks in criticizing the accounting board for that proposal.

7.   He is now in the position of trying to persuade Congress that the accounting board is doing nothing in haste.

8.   He pointed to a paper by Dennis Beresford, former chairman of the accounting board, who argued that the current rules were satisfactory.

9.   He said he would try to make sure that the issues raised by the Federal Reserve, which oversees banking regulation, were considered carefully by the accounting board.

10.   He served on several national tax and accounting advisory boards and as a professor and a consultant at the University of California School of Business in Berkeley.