[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 22 (Wednesday, March 2, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E335]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    INTRODUCTION OF A RESOLUTION TO ALLOW HOUSE TO OBTAIN CRITICAL 
       INFORMATION ON OUR NATION'S SINGLE EMPLOYER PENSION PLANS

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                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 2, 2005

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I rise to introduce a resolution for 
the purpose of allowing the House to obtain critical information about 
the financial status of our nation's single employer pension plans. 
Current law requires this valuable information about pension plans to 
be kept secret. This is wrong. Employees and investors should know all 
the facts. Employees should be fully informed about financial health of 
their own plan, and use that information as part of their overall 
retirement planning. The President says he supports making the 
information public. I have introduced legislation making this 
information public. I hope Congress will act on this proposal when we 
take up pension legislation later this year.
  For now, Congress should be fully aware of the financial health of 
the nation's top pension plans as it debates ways to strengthen defined 
benefit pension plans. This resolution will insure we get the data to 
make informed decisions. Recently, the GAO put the Pension Benefits 
Guaranty Corporation, PBGC, on its ``watch list'' for the second time 
in a row. The PBGC recently reported a $23 billion deficit for last 
year. Overall, PBGC reports that private pension plans are underfunded 
by some $450 billion, the largest amount in history. The Bush 
administration recently proposed hiking pension plan insurance premiums 
by $15 billion over the next 5 years, and proposes billions of dollars 
in accelerated pension contributions. And yet, we are being asked to 
consider such a proposal without current and accurate information about 
any individual company's funding status. This resolution requests the 
administration to provide us this information within 14 days, while 
protecting any proprietary information related to the sponsoring 
company.

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