A leading Senate critic of China's currency policy said a group of her colleagues were determined to push legislation allowing the Commerce Department to use anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws against China's exchange rate.

We are determined to bring this before the Senate and we believe we have the majority support to pass it, Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a watchdog panel created by Congress.

Stabenow also raised concerns about China's indigenous innovation policies which she said threatened to keep U.S. companies out of its huge government procurement market.

She said she planned to introduce a bill next week that would bar the U.S. government from buying Chinese products until Beijing has joined the World Trade Organization agreement on government procurement.

Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, echoed Stabenow's concerns about China's currency and indigenous innovation policy and said he was also worried about Chinese barriers to U.S. clean energy exports.

He urged the U.S. Trade Representative's office to launch a formal investigation, known as a Section 301 probe, to determine whether China is violating commitments it made when it joined the WTO back in 2001.

( Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by W Simon )

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