[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 48 (Wednesday, April 7, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S3871]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CONFERENCE PROCEDURES

  Mr. DASCHLE. Finally, Mr. President, let me just add one other 
troubling aspect to this discussion this morning, and that is the 
pension bill.
  Our caucus will be discussing this matter this afternoon. I am 
hopeful we can find some way to address the issue of pensions in a 
meaningful way. I have indicated to Senator Frist how concerned we are 
with the way pensions have once again been addressed in conference. We 
used this conference as a test to see whether Senators, in a bipartisan 
way, can work together, but once again Democrats were locked out of the 
discussions in a way that brought about a very questionable result.
  The Senate voted 85 to 14 to support multiemployer and single-
employer pension plans. We went to conference. We had a tentative 
agreement that at least 20 percent of the multiemployer pension plans 
would be addressed. We felt that was a sufficient effort to address 
some of the real plans in crisis.
  Unfortunately, the White House told the conferees that that was 
unacceptable to them and, without consultation and without any effort 
to resolve the matter in some form of bipartisan compromise, Democrats 
once again, as we saw last year with the Omnibus legislation, with the 
Medicare prescription drug benefit, and with other bills, got the same 
result. It is no wonder our colleagues are so reluctant to go to 
conference. Once again, as the pension bill proved, the conferences are 
not working as they should.
  It is for that reason many of us are very concerned about what now to 
do with the pension bill as it is presented. We will have a good 
discussion about that in caucus today and make some decision as we go 
forward.
  This is not the way conferences should work. It is deeply troubling 
to many of us that again we find ourselves in exactly the situation 
that I warned would cause further problems were it to happen again. It 
has. I regrettably feel as if conferences in the future are going to be 
very difficult, if not impossible.
  I yield the floor.

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