Governor Spitzer, who made his name as the “Sheriff of Wall Street,” is now throwing his weight behind a report pushing for regulatory and legal changes to make the business environment less burdensome for companies in New York.

The governor made a surprise appearance at City Hall yesterday to back Mayor Bloomberg and Senator Schumer, who released a report that paints a doomsday scenario: It warns that New York will lose its spot as the world’s financial capital in 10 years if the federal government doesn’t act.

Mr. Spitzer reconciled his backing of a call to protect Wall Street with his aggressive pursuit of the industry by saying that all the cases he pursued while attorney general cut to the “fundamental integrity of the marketplace.”

“There are no doubt people who are going to say, ‘Gee it’s interesting you become governor and suddenly you talk about reforming the regulatory framework,” Mr. Spitzer said. “We are seeing a market that is now performing famously. None of that would have happened or could have happened had the underlying integrity of the market not been guaranteed.”

Mr. Spitzer did not spell out where he stands on each recommendation in the report. He did, however, say that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in the wake of the Enron scandal, needs to be “amended in some important ways.” He noted that some portions are “mired in minutia.”

“The statue proves what we all know is the most powerful law in the world: the law of unintended consequences,” the governor said. “One of the consequences of Section 404 has been to disadvantage some of the smaller companies.”

Mr. Spitzer is on board with the suggestion that the number of visas for skilled workers be increased. He also backs caps on punitive damages for auditors and lawsuits “in some form” — both of which were raised in the report as ideas that should be considered — “as long as it’s done in a way that allows a person to be reimbursed through a viable lawsuit,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Spitzer, Christine Anderson, said in an e-mail.

Those who oppose such caps, including trial lawyers, say the threat of unlimited punitive damages could help deter another Enron- or Tyco-type scandal.

The governor did not suggest wholesale changes to Sarbanes-Oxley, singling out portions — such as improving transparency, protecting whistle-blowers, and prohibiting destruction of documents — as important to keep.

A Manhattan lawyer who represents investors, Jacob Zamansky said Mr. Spitzer has “changed his stripes” now that he has a new job and new goals.

“If Spitzer was an advocate for ordinary investors, I don’t think he would approve of these proposals,” Mr. Zamansky, a longtime critic of Mr. Spitzer, said. “He is looking at how to increase revenue to the state and running over the in vestors he championed just a few years ago.”

On the other hand, Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican of Staten Island, said it is in the city’s interest to have a bipartisan group of elected leaders backing ways to make New York more competitive.

Mr. Fossella, who has been sounding the alarm on keeping New York’s financial sector competitive, noted that it costs companies an average of $90,000 a year to comply with current regulations.

Mr. Bloomberg, who made billions on Wall Street, cast the issue as both a local and a national one, saying that the industry buoys the entire American economy. Mr. Schumer said if New York loses out on “being the financial center, the rest will just go down the drain.”

“When the pie stops growing, New York loses its soul, and that could very well happen if we don’t do anything,” Mr. Schumer said.

The two lawmakers said yesterday was the launch of a campaign to lobby for the changes outlined in the report, which was conducted by McKinsey & Company. The report also says the guidelines for implementing Sarbanes- Oxley need to be easier to understand.

Mr. Schumer said he had already sent the report to the Treasury Secretary Paulson, to the Securities & Exchange Commission chairman, Christopher Cox, and to the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. Mr. Schumer said these officials already have offered “positive” feedback, and he described Mr. Paulson, a former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, as “very, very gung-ho.”

The mayor and senator also defended Mr. Spitzer’s aggressive tactics as attorney general, saying that the federal government, most notably the SEC, was not doing its job and that someone had to step in and do it.