Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said Wednesday Securities and Exchange Commission Acting Chair Michael Piwowar may be exceeding his powers.

“Commissioner Piwowar has exerted unusual authority for an acting agency chair," Senator Warren charged.

Warren said Piwowar may have overreached when he ordered a scaling back of the SEC Enforcement Division’s investigative powers and called on SEC staff to reconsider two SEC Dodd-Frank Act mandated final rules on conflict minerals and disclosure of how senior executive pay compares to that of average workers at a public company.

Warren said Piwowar should have notified the only other sitting Commissioner, Democrat Kara Stein, of his actions, but it appears he didn’t.

She called Piwowar’s decisions politically motivated.

She and three other Senate Banking Committee Democrats have requested that SEC Inspector General Carl Hoecker investigate possible Piwowar abuses of power.

But he has basically been silent since he was named to the post in January 2013.