ASHINGTON — One popular solution to the current crisis of corporate crime is to fix the accounting rules for stock options. Force companies to count those whopping stock option packages as expenses when they are granted, many say, and the fraud will recede. I wish it were that easy.

The reality is that giving options to employees is an innovative idea that has been abused by greedy executives. But changing the accounting rules won't change their behavior; it will only deny options to average workers who have done nothing wrong. Our goal should be to deter the abuse of stock options without discouraging the use of a tool that plays a valuable role in the American economy.

My familiarity with this arcane issue dates back to 1993, when the Financial Accounting Standards Board, an independent group that sets rules on how to account for business transactions, first floated a plan to require stock options to be treated as an expense against earnings on profit-and-loss statements at the time they are granted.

I opposed this rule change. Options are a valuable tool for attracting talent and spreading wealth because they give employees a greater stake in their companies. And business leaders, particularly from the high-tech community, said they would have to issue fewer options if they had to subtract their estimated value from their profits. In addition, there is no accurate way to value an option on the day it is granted. Options only become valuable several years later, when they are exercised.

The circumstances have surely changed since I worked to defeat the board's plan. But the problems with the board's approach have not. Requiring firms to predict the value of options is still bad accounting, and it would still have damaging repercussions: it would significantly reduce earnings for many companies with large option plans, which in turn would reduce the value of their stock in particular and the market in general. That is the last thing we need now.

Faced with such a change, businesses would almost certainly decide to grant fewer options. And in all likelihood, the first to be cut out would be middle-class workers — millions of whom, thanks to options, have seen their wealth grow substantially over the last decade.

There clearly is a problem with the abuse of options that demands a legislative response. But the solution has little to do with accounting. The fact is that some greedy executives, loaded up with tens of thousands of options, engage in all manner of fraudulent and deceitful accounting tricks to jack up earnings and their share price, cash in at the right time, and then leave the company.

How do you stop this from happening? The bill the Senate passed last week, by establishing independent oversight and tough new criminal penalties for bad behavior, will go a long way toward preventing the particular corruptions that may have been driven by large option packages.

We also should adopt new policies that change the way options are allocated, sold and approved. The number of people receiving options has grown significantly in the last decade — the National Center for Employee Ownership estimates that between 7 million and 10 million people now hold options, and a number of companies, like Intel and Sun, have broad-based plans that distribute most options to rank-and-file workers, not senior executives. But the majority of options are still awarded to a small number of high-level managers. We need to stop this hoarding of options at the top of the corporate food chain.

In the past I've proposed changes in tax policy to encourage the expansion of broad-based option plans. But in light of this wave of corporate crime, it's time for more forceful measures. One sensible idea is to prohibit companies from deducting the cost of options when exercised if they do not offer the majority of them to rank-and-file workers. Another way to deter the misuse of options is to set up a mandatory holding period and curtail top executives from selling their shares while they are still employed by the company. We should also give shareholders a greater say in the design of option plans, particularly for company leaders, by requiring a majority approval of such plans by shareholders.

I intend to propose legislation in the weeks ahead that encompasses these reforms. I am confident that if we broaden our discussion, we can reach a consensus that will end the abuse of stock options without jeopardizing an effective tool that has played a critical role in the democratization of capitalism in this country.

Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, is chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.