[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 65 (Friday, May 16, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4658-S4660]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS OF INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself and Mr. Breaux):
S. 757. A bill to amend the Employee Retirement Savings Act of 1974
to promote retirement income savings through the establishment of an
outreach program in the Department of Labor and periodic national
summits on retirement savings; to the Committee on Labor and Human
Resources.
the savings are vital to everyone's retirement act of 1997
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce
legislation to address a problem of critical importance to this
country: The dismal level of individual retirement savings. This
measure would encourage retirement savings by initiating an education
project and creating a national summit on retirement savings.
Before I go any further let me read you some statistics:
Our national net savings fell from 7.1 to 1.8 percent from the 1970's
to the 1990's. On an individual level, this means that individuals may
not be able to retire when they desire with the lifestyle that they
desire.
In a 1994 survey by the Employee Benefits Research Institute [EBRI]:
14 percent of workers who were saving for their retirement did not know
much they had saved, and 13 percent saved less than $1,000.
In another survey by Merrill Lynch of workers in their forties and
early fifties, savings levels had dropped by 6 percent from 1988 to
1994.
According to the 1996 Retirement Confidence Survey released earlier
this year by the EBRI: Only one-third of American workers have
calculated how much money they will need to have saved by retirement in
order to live comfortably; of the workers that have tried to determine
how much money they should be saving, only one-third felt very
confident that they had determined an accurate figure; when asked how
much they calculated that they would need to save, 42 percent could not
give an amount; and less than 20 percent had a specific number with
which to work.
So, the problem is twofold: There is a lack of adequate retirement
savings, and Americans workers do not understand the importance of
determining how much money they should be saving in order to retire
comfortably. The Special Committee on Aging, which I chair, held its
first hearing on meeting the challenges of the retiring baby boom
generation. At that hearing, witness after witness stressed the need to
start a national public education campaign. This downward trend in
savings couldn't be happending at a worse time, given the retirement of
the first wave of baby boomers is in just over 10 years. When baby
boomers retire we will be unable to sustain, as presently structured,
the programs on which the elderly rely for their health and income
security. Educating the public about the necessity to save for their
retirement is vital. That is why I am introducing the Savings Are Vital
to Everyone's Retirement, or SAVER, Act of 1997.
The SAVER Act would direct the Department of Labor to maintain an
ongoing retirement savings education program. This program would
include public service announcements, public meetings, the creation and
dissemination of educational materials, and establish a site on the
Internet. This project will give the American people the information
they need, in terms they can understand, to develop retirement savings
goals and a plan to achieve those goals. The information will include
the tools necessary for individuals to cacluate how much an individual
will need to save. Just a important, this educational effort will also
focus on how employers can establish different retirement savings
arrangements for their employees.
My legislation will also convene a national summit on retirement
savings. The summit will bring together in one forum experts in the
field of employee benefits and retirement savings, leaders of
Government, and interested parties from the private sector and the
general public. By bringing these delegates together we hope to advance
the public's knowledge and understanding of the need to put money away
for retirement, urge American workers to set aside adequate funds, and
identify the impediments for small employers in setting up retirement
savings arrangements for their employees.
I want to commend Congressmen Harris Fawell and Donald Payne,
chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Employee-Employer
Relations of the Education and Workforce Committee, for their
leadership. The House legislation, H.R. 1377, has bipartisan support
with over 30 cosponsors across the political spectrum. In addition the
bill is endorsed by the several organizations including the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, and the American Association of Retired Persons.
Today's workers need to have confidence and feel good about their
retirement and quality of life. One of the most important things
Government can do is encourage individuals to acquire the knowledge
that will help them achieve a secure retirement. The SAVER Act is by no
means a solution to the problem of inadequate retirement savings, but
it is a critical first step to facing the future demographic tidalwave.
______
By Mr. LEVIN:
S. 758. A bill to make certain technical corrections to the Lobbying
Disclosure Act of 1995; to the Committee on Governmental Affairs.
THE LOBBYING DISCLOSURE TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS ACT OF 1997
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I introduce the Lobbying Disclosure
Technical Amendments Act of 1997. Last
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year, Congressmen Charles Canady and Barney Frank sponsored a similar
piece of legislation and moved it through the House of Representatives.
Unfortunately, a last minute dispute over one of the provisions
precluded the Senate from passing the bill and sending it to the
President for signature. The bill I am introducing today contains all
but one of the key elements of the bill passed by the House last year;
the provision that was problematic to some Members of the Senate has
been omitted. I hope that the Senate will act expeditiously to pass
this revised bill, so that we can clear up the technical issues
identified by our colleagues on the House side in the last Congress.
Mr. President, just 2 years ago, Congress enacted the Lobbying
Disclosure Act [LDA], the first substantive reform in the laws
governing lobbying disclosure in 50 years. The LDA was designed to
overhaul our lobbying disclosure statutes and plug the glaring
loopholes in those laws. Lobbying of congressional staff is no longer
exempt; lobbying of executive branch officials is no longer exempt;
lobbying on nonlegislative issues is no longer exempt; and the much-
abused primary purpose test has been eliminated. For the first time
ever, all paid, professional lobbyists are required to disclose who is
paying them how much to lobby Congress and the executive branch on what
issues.
At the same time, the 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act made the lobbying
disclosure laws more understandable and easier to comply with by
providing clear, sensible disclosure rules; establishing sensible de
minimis requirements; eliminating duplicative and overlapping
disclosure requirements; replacing quarterly reports with semi-annual
reports; authorizing the development of computer-filing systems;
requiring a single registration by each organization whose employees
lobby instead of separate registrations by each employee-lobbyist;
requiring good-faith estimates of total, bottom-line lobbying
expenditures; and allowing entities that are already required to
account for lobbying expenditures under the Internal Revenue Code to
use data collected for the IRS for disclosure purposes as well.
Detailed guidance provided by the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk
of the House of Representatives have also helped provide clear lines as
to who is required to register and what must be disclosed. I would like
to commend the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of
Representatives for the tremendous job that they have done in
developing guidance, communicating with the public, and handling huge
quantities of new information, with almost no lead time to prepare.
There is already substantial evidence that this reform is working.
Preliminary reports indicate that the number of organizations and
individuals registered under the new law in the first year was almost
triple the number of organizations and individuals registered a year
earlier, under the old law. Reporting of lobbying expenditures appears
to have increased to an even greater degree and may now be as much as a
billion dollars a year. The new lobbying disclosure forms not only
contain more accurate information than the old forms, they also convey
it in a manner that is far more readable and easier to understand. As a
result, the public is getting a far more accurate picture than ever
before of what issues are being lobbied, who is lobbying them, and how
much is being spent.
I remain disappointed that the Lobbying Disclosure Act does not cover
paid efforts by professional lobbyists to stimulate grassroots
lobbying--so-called astroturf lobbying--and I would like to see faster
progress in the development of computer filing systems and automated
data bases to make filing easier and lobbying information more
accessible. But already, in just 1 year, we have made huge progress in
shining the light of public disclosure on the lobbying industry.
The legislation now before us would make minor adjustments to the
LDA, to ensure that the law continues to operate as intended. In
particular, the bill would:
Clarify the definition of a ``covered executive branch official''
under the LDA;
Clarify that any communication compelled by a federal contract,
grant, loan, permit or license is not considered to be a lobbying
contact;
Clarify that the official representatives of international groups
such as NATO and the United Nations are public officials who are not
required to register as lobbyists;
Clarify how estimates of lobbying income and expenditures may be made
on the basis of the tax reporting system;
Clarify that organizations lobbying on behalf of foreign commercial
entities should register under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, even if
they engage in only de minimis lobbying; and
Make a conforming change to the terminology of the Foreign Agents
Registration Act which was inadvertently omitted in the LDA.
Mr. President, the most significant provision of this bill addresses
the coordination of IRS and LDA reporting requirements for companies
and organizations that are required to report to the IRS in accordance
with the Internal Revenue Code [IRC]. The IRC's definition of
``lobbying'' is different that the one contained in the LDA.
The IRC's definition of lobbying encompasses the local, State and
Federal levels. The LDA's definition is limited to the Federal level.
The IRC's definition covers lobbying only on legislative issues. The
LDA's definition includes non-legislative lobbying as well.
Because Congress did not want to require entities that lobby to keep
two sets of books on their lobbying activities, the Lobbying Disclosure
Act permits entities that are subject to IRS lobbying requirements to
use the IRS definitions in lieu of the LDA definitions in regard to
several LDA reporting requirements: the dollar amounts spent on
lobbying activities, whether there has been a contact that triggers
reporting, and the 20-percent test for determining who is a lobbyist.
As for the requirement to report who was lobbied and the issues that
were the subject of the lobbying, the Secretary of the Senate and the
Clerk of the House have interpreted the Lobbying Disclosure Act to
require that reporting be done in accordance with the LDA definition of
lobbying.
The LDA provisions authorizing entities to use, for LDA purposes, the
same information they submit to the IRS make sense, as far as they
apply to the reporting of dollar amounts. However, the application of
these provisions to other aspects of lobbying leads to confusing
results--most notably in connection with the triggering contacts and
calculating whether an individual has crossed the 20-percent line and
therefore is required to register as a lobbyist. When registrants are
allowed to use IRS definitions in these situations, they may be
required to list their State and local government lobbyists--since the
IRS definition includes State and local lobbying--but not all of their
Federal Government lobbyists, since the IRS definition excludes
lobbying Congress on nonlegislative matters. In other words, we get
both too much information and too little. The intent of the Lobbying
Disclosure Act is to provide a full picture of lobbying on the Federal
level without being overly burdensome. That means we don't need to know
about State and local lobbyists, but we do need to know about lobbying
of Congress on legislative and nonlegislative matters.
This bill would continue to allow registrants subject to the IRS
lobbying requirements to apply the IRS definition of lobbying
activities to the requirement under the LDA for reporting the amount of
money spent on lobbying activities. At the same time, it would address
the problem caused by applying IRS definitions for other purposes. In
particular, the bill would:
First, require the application of the LDA definition with respect to
legislative branch lobbying for the determination of contacts, the
application of the 20 percent test, and the reporting of who was
lobbied and on what issues.
Second, allow such registrants to use the IRS definition with respect
to executive branch lobbying for these same reporting requirements.
This approach would produce more useful information, while reducing the
problem of tracking lobbying to two different definitions by allowing
lobbyists to follow IRS definitions in regard to executive branch
lobbying.
Mr. President, when we passed the Lobbying Disclosure Act 2 years
ago, we had a clear goal in mind: We wanted
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to get a full overview of Federal level lobbying. The bill I am
introducing today is designed to ensure that the act achieves that goal
in the most effective manner without imposing an undue burden on the
registrants. The Lobbying Disclosure Act has already proved its worth.
This technical amendments bill will, through a few commonsense
corrections, make the LDA even more useful.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill
appear in the Record.
S. 758
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND REFERENCE.
(a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Lobbying
Disclosure Technical Amendments Act of 1997''.
(b) Reference.Whenever in this Act an amendment or repeal
is expressed in terms of an amendment to, or repeal of, a
section or other provision, the reference shall be considered
to be made to a section or other provision of the Lobbying
Disclosure Act of 1995.
SEC. 2. DEFINITION OF COVERED EXECUTIVE BRANCH OFFICIAL.
Section 3(3)(F) (2 U.S.C. 1602(3)(F)) is amended by
striking ``7511(b)(2)'' and inserting ``7511(b)(2)(B)''.
SEC. 3. CLARIFICATION OF EXCEPTION TO LOBBYING CONTACT.
(a) Certain Communications.--Section 3(8)(B)(ix) (2 U.S.C.
1602(8)(B)(ix)) is amended by inserting before the semicolon
the following:``, including any communication compelled by a
Federal contract grant, loan, permit, or license''.
(b) Definition of ``Public Official''.--Section 3(15)(F) (2
U.S.C. 1602(15)(F)) is amended by inserting ``, or a group of
governments acting together as an international
organization'' before the period.
SEC. 4. ESTIMATES BASED ON TAX REPORTING SYSTEM.
(a) Section 15(a).--Section 15(a) (2 U.S.C. 1610(a)) is
amended--
(1) by striking ``A registrant'' and inserting ``A person,
other than a lobbying firm,''; and
(2) by amending paragraph (2) to read as follows:
``(2) for all other purposes consider as lobbying contacts
and lobbying activities only--
``(A) lobbying contacts with covered legislative branch
officials (as defined in section 3(4)) and lobbying
activities in support of such contacts; and
``(B) lobbying of Federal executive branch officials to the
extent that such activities are influencing legislation as
defined in section 4911(d) of the Internal Revenue Code of
1986.''.
(b) Section 15(b).--Section 15(b) (2 U.S.C. 1610(b)) is
amended--
(1) by striking ``A registrant that is subject to'' and
inserting ``A person, other than a lobbying firm, who is
required to account and does account for lobbying
expenditures pursuant to''; and
(2) by amending paragraph (2) to read as follows:
``(2) for all other purposes consider as lobbying contacts
and lobbying activities only--
``(A) lobbying contacts with covered legislative branch
officials (as defined in section 3(4)) and lobbying
activities in support of such contacts; and
``(B) lobbying of Federal executive branch officials to the
extent that amounts paid or costs incurred in connection with
such activities are not deductible pursuant to section 162(e)
of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.''.
(c) Section 5(c).--Section 5(c) (2 U.S.C. 1604(c)) is
amended by striking paragraph (3).
SEC. 5. EXEMPTION BASED ON REGISTRATION UNDER LOBBYING ACT.
Section 3(h) of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938
(22 U.S.C. 613(h)) is amended by striking ``is required to
register and does register'' and inserting ``has engaged in
lobbying activities and has registered''.
______
By Mr. DODD (for himself and Mr. Harkin):
S. 761. A bill to amend the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to establish
certain additional requirements relating to electronic and information
technology accessibility guidelines for individuals with disabilities,
and for other purposes; to the Committee on Labor and Human Resources.
THE Federal ELECTRONIC AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DISABILITY COMPLIANCE
ACT OF 1997
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I introduce the Federal Electronic and
Information Technology Disability Compliance Act of 1997. In an effort
to make it easier for persons with disabilities to work, this
legislation will allow the Federal Government to take the lead in
providing Federal employees who have disabilities with critical access
to technological tools in the workplace.
The Federal Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility
Compliance Act of 1997 strengthens Federal requirements that electronic
tools and information technology purchased by Federal agencies be made
accessible to their employees. Additionally, it would require States
that receive Federal resources toward disability programs to meet
accessibility guidelines when they purchase technology. Section 508 of
the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires such compliance, but currently
there is no enforcement mechanism to assure that this is done. The
House of Representatives today passed similar legislation introduced by
Representative Anna Eshoo.
Barriers to information and technology must be broken down. By giving
Federal employees with disabilities the opportunity to utilize
technological advancements, we provide them hope and encourage self-
sufficiency.
Additionally, I believe these new efforts will encourage the private
sector to adopt similar procedures. Let the Federal Government provide
a good example to the private sector in its efforts.
Concrete examples of technological advancements that have aided
persons with disabilities include: Telephones and fax machines with
voice features for the visually impaired; voice mail that is converted
for the deaf or hearing impaired; and CD-ROM or network-based
information systems that can be equipped with audio descriptions of
visual elements.
Nationally, there are 49 million Americans who have disabilities. It
is critical, Mr. President, that given the rapid introduction of new
technologies, persons with disabilities not be allowed to fall behind.
The more we can do to promote their equality, independence, and
dignity, the better.
I want to commend Mr. William Paul of United Technologies Corp., in
my state of Connecticut, for first bringing this matter to my
attention. Mr. Paul has identified a critical need among members of our
society. His civic-minded actions deserve to be commended not only by
people with disabilities, but by all Americans.
Mr. President, I believe this a modest measure, that will improve the
lives of the millions of Americans who have disabilities across this
country and benefit our society as a whole. I hope to have my
colleagues support.
____________________