[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1600 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







106th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1600

To amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to prevent 
   the wearing away of an employee's accrued benefit under a defined 
   benefit plan by the adoption of a plan amendment reducing future 
                        accruals under the plan.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           September 16, 1999

    Mr. Harkin (for himself, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Jeffords, Mr. Reid, Mr. 
 Kennedy, and Mr. Wellstone) introduced the following bill; which was 
 read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
                              and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to prevent 
   the wearing away of an employee's accrued benefit under a defined 
   benefit plan by the adoption of a plan amendment reducing future 
                        accruals under the plan.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Older Workers Pension Protection Act 
of 1999''.

SEC. 2. PREVENTION OF WEARING AWAY OF EMPLOYEE'S ACCRUED BENEFIT.

    (a) In General.--Section 204(g) of the Employee Retirement Income 
Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1054(g)) is amended by adding at the 
end the following new paragraph:
    ``(4)(A) For purposes of paragraph (1), a plan amendment adopted by 
a large defined benefit plan shall be treated as reducing accrued 
benefits of a participant if, under the terms of the plan after the 
adoption of the amendment, the accrued benefit of the participant may 
at any time be less than the sum of--
            ``(i) the participant's accrued benefit for years of 
        service before the effective date of the amendment, determined 
        under the terms of the plan as in effect immediately before the 
        effective date, plus
            ``(ii) the participant's accrued benefit determined under 
        the formula applicable to benefit accruals under the current 
        plan as applied to years of service after such effective date.
    ``(B) For purposes of this paragraph, the term `large defined 
benefit plan' means any defined benefit plan which had 100 or more 
participants who had accrued a benefit under the plan (whether or not 
vested) as of the last day of the plan year preceding the plan year in 
which the plan amendment becomes effective.
    ``(C) For purposes of this paragraph, an accrued benefit shall 
include any early retirement benefit or retirement-type subsidy (within 
the meaning of paragraph (2)(A)), but only with respect to a 
participant who satisfies (either before or after the effective date of 
the amendment) the conditions for the benefit or subsidy under the 
terms of the plan as in effect immediately before such date.''
    (b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall 
apply to plan amendments that go into effect after June 29, 1999.
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