[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 168 (Thursday, December 22, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2830, PENSION PROTECTION ACT OF 
                                  2005

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, December 15, 2005

  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2830, the 
Pension Protection Act of 2005.
  Any bill that is called the ``Pension Protection Act'' should protect 
pensions, but the bill we have before us makes things worse in many 
ways for many current pensioners in this country and for many future 
pensioners.
  First and foremost, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation was 
first created to protect some of the retiree benefits of people if 
pension plans went bust or the corporations went bust. We are now told 
that this legislation makes that problem worse. The Congressional 
Budget Office tells us that this will make it at least $9 billion worse 
over the next decade.
  This is an agency that can look out into the future and can see up to 
$100 billion of liabilities possibly coming their way. Much of which 
will come because this bill makes it easier to terminate plans. Simply, 
it makes it easier to put plans into bankruptcy.
  This bill does nothing to solve the problems we have seen with 
airline industry pensions because their pension plans can be dumped 
during bankruptcy just as easily as they can now. This bill does 
nothing to prevent this.
  The way we can tell that this legislation does not do the job is the 
way the Republican Leadership is making us debate the bill by taking 
the unusually restrictive step of not allowing us to debate substitute 
legislation. I guess they realize that this bill is so bad that if they 
allowed us the substitute, it certainly would have prevailed over this 
legislation. I would have supported the legislation that Congressmen 
Rangel and George Miller had prepared.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this legislation. Its only 
accomplishment is to make the problems of America's pensioners even 
worse than they are today.

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