Legislation to expand the investor protection powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission is headed for a final vote Wednesday in the House Financial Services Committee.

The panel briefly resumed consideration of the bill Tuesday but postponed votes on it and several pending amendments for a day.

The measure, which would boost funding for the SEC and strengthen its powers to enforce securities laws, is one in a series aimed at overhauling regulation of the financial services sector in the wake of last year’s meltdown.

One of the amendments would exempt small businesses from independent auditing requirements under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which requires companies to conduct independent audits of their financial control processes. The SEC already has exempted companies with a market capitalization up to $75 million from the requirement because the compliance costs created such a burden on those small businesses. The amendment would write that exemption into law permanently.

Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank , D-Mass., opposed the amendment, saying that the current exemption was never supposed to be permanent. It exists to give the SEC time to come up with a less burdensome way for smaller companies to comply with the auditing requirements, he said.

“This amendment says rules smules,” Frank said. “They’ll never be covered.”