(CNN) Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday released a new proposal that would repeal controversial pieces of the 2005 bankruptcy law that she and Joe Biden, then a senior Senate Democrat, repeatedly clashed over nearly two decades ago.

The Warren plan targets a series of provisions that she has criticized for years, arguing that they benefit credit card companies and big lenders at the expense of Americans struggling with consumer, household and student debt.

Biden is not mentioned by name in Warren's post announcing her plan, but the Massachusetts Democrat's decision to elevate the issue with less than a month until Iowa begins its caucuses could renew a decades-old conflict with the former vice president, who during his time in the Senate backed the legislation -- and, in a now-famous hearing on Capitol Hill , went toe to toe with Warren, then a law professor at Harvard who opposed it.

Warren, who has seen her poll numbers sag after a summer surge, could seek to re-create that dynamic on the debate stage next week in Iowa. Though foreign policy has dominated most of the discussion following President Donald Trump's order to kill a top Iranian military leader in Iraq, Warren will be keen to steer the policy exchanges to more comfortable territory -- and away from her position on "Medicare for All," the single-payer health insurance plan, which has caused her problems with both moderates and the left.

Bankruptcy policy is firmer territory for Warren, who has studied and written about its effects for large parts of her professional life, and it features prominently on the palette of concerns that caused her to enter politics. Her fluency on the topic could make it a useful springboard for rejiggering the focus of the primary debate and put Biden, who is trending up in recent polls of Iowa, on the back foot.

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