SEC Chief Says Agency Has Stepped Up Enforcement

The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission says the agency has stepped up enforcement in the wake of the financial crisis and past agency failures.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro is appearing at a House subcommittee hearing Tuesday. It is her first public testimony since the passage of sweeping financial regulation that gives the agency new powers. Her comments also are coming after the agency agreed to let Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges.

"We worked to reform the ways we operate. We began modernizing our systems," Schapiro says in testimony prepared for the hearing.