WASHINGTON - Senior managers at Arthur Andersen raised concerns about Enron Corp.'s accounting practices last February and considered dropping the energy company as a client, according to an accounting firm memo uncovered by congressional investigators.

Andersen spokesman Patrick Dorton said the Feb. 6 e-mail referred to a "routine annual meeting that Andersen does with every client. It was normal practice."

The e-mail, whose existence was confirmed by a staff member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, indicated Andersen executives may have been aware of potential problems at Enron much earlier than previously acknowledged.

David Duncan, the former chief auditor for Andersen's Enron account, was questioned Wednesday by committee investigators about the memo. Andersen fired Duncan this week, saying he organized the destruction of Enron documents after learning that federal regulators were seeking them.

The energy-trading concern, once the seventh-largest U.S. company, entered the biggest bankruptcy in the country's history on Dec. 2.

The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is investigating Enron and Andersen's role in its complex accounting, declined any comment on the inquiry yesterday at a news conference where he announced a proposed new private-sector body to regulate the accounting profession.

Chairman Harvey Pitt did say that in general, the SEC will reserve its harshest punishment "for anyone who lies or obstructs (an SEC) inquiry."

If anyone were found to have lied or destroyed documents, "then we turn the full wrath of the (SEC's) enforcement powers against those individuals," Pitt said.

Sanctions normally would include civil fines and other penalties. Unlike the Justice Department, the SEC does not have the power to put wrongdoers in jail.

Duncan told investigators with the House Energy and Commerce Committee that in September, general discussions began at Andersen of what Enron-related documents to discard, and that the Big Five accounting firm's lawyers suddenly began emphasizing Andersen's policy allowing destruction of some documents.

Duncan told the investigators it was unusual to emphasize the document-destruction policy, according to congressional sources familiar with what he said. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.

An Andersen spokesman declined comment.

According to the sources, Duncan told investigators that an Oct. 12 memo from one of Andersen's lawyers was the beginning of an effort to discard many records.

Andersen has said Duncan organized a two-week document destruction effort that began in late October. The accounting firm fired Duncan on Tuesday, put three other Enron auditors on administrative leave and stripped management responsibilities from four partners in its office in Houston, where Enron is based.

At the White House, spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush's chief economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, was asked to study the impact of an Enron collapse after presidential aides were alerted to the problem last fall. He concluded late last year that Enron's collapse would not hurt U.S. and global financial markets. That's the same finding reached by Peter Fisher, the Treasury undersecretary in charge of financial markets who opened a review after two phone calls from Lay to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on Oct. 28 and Nov. 8.

Lindsey, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and a private economic consultant at the time, received $50,000 from Enron in 2000 as a member of an Enron advisory board.

Enron has been Bush's biggest campaign benefactor over the years.