[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 51 (Wednesday, May 3, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H2071-H2076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2830, PENSION PROTECTION ACT OF 
                                  2005

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to 
instruct.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. George Miller of California moves that the managers on 
     the part of the House at the conference on the disagreeing 
     votes of the two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill 
     H.R. 2830 be instructed to recede to the provisions contained 
     in the Senate amendment regarding restrictions on funding of 
     nonqualified deferred compensation plans, except that--
       (1) to the maximum extent possible within the scope of the 
     conference, the managers on the part of the House shall 
     insist that the restrictions under the bill as reported from 
     conference regarding executive compensation, including under 
     nonqualified plans, be the same as restrictions under the 
     bill regarding benefits for workers and retirees under 
     qualified pension plans,
       (2) the managers on the part of the House shall insist that 
     the definition of ``covered employee'' for purposes of such 
     provisions contained in the Senate amendment include the 
     chief executive officer of the plan sponsor, any other 
     employee of the plan sponsor who is a ``covered employee'' 
     within the

[[Page H2072]]

     meaning of such term specified in the provisions contained in 
     the Senate amendment (applied by disregarding the chief 
     executive officer), and any other individual who is, with 
     respect to the plan sponsor, an officer or employee within 
     the meaning of section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act 
     of 1934, and
       (3) in lieu of the effective date specified in such 
     provisions contained in the Senate amendment, the managers on 
     the part of the House shall insist on the effective date 
     specified in the provisions of the bill as passed the House 
     relating to treatment of nonqualified deferred compensation 
     plans when the employer's defined benefit plan is in at-risk 
     status.

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I 
ask unanimous consent that the motion to instruct be considered as read 
and printed in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 7 of rule XXII, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McKeon) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller).
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7 
minutes.
  Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, my motion to instruct conferees 
on the pension conference that is now going on between the House and 
Senate is very simple. It says that any pension restrictions we impose 
on the Nation's hardest-working employees and retirees must also be 
applied to the Nation's CEOs and corporate executives. It says no more 
preferential treatment, legal loopholes, manipulation, or special 
exemptions for executives with the pensions of the various companies of 
this country.
  Today, the Enron criminal trials are reminding us of how Ken Lay and 
his merry gang ran Enron into the ground through a vast criminal 
conspiracy of greed and arrogance, all at the expense of consumers, the 
investors, and tens of thousands of employees who lost billions of 
irreplaceable life savings.
  Ken Lay and his cronies plundered the company by putting themselves 
above the law, beyond the rules, and shamelessly exploited legal 
loopholes that allowed them to walk away with tens of millions in 
golden parachutes and perks, while their employees were kept in the 
dark about the sinking ship of Enron. In fact, they were even advised 
by Mr. Lay to continue buying the stock while he and his family were 
selling the stock privately without telling the public or the 
employees.
  During the pension debate, President Bush took notice of the 
preferential treatment for corporate CEOs and executives in pension 
law, and he said, ``If the rules are okay for the sailor, they ought to 
be okay for the captain.''
  Well, the House pension bill ignores that admonishment. It sets up 
two sets of rules, one for the sailors and the other for the captains, 
one for the employees and those who are in the penthouses, one for the 
employees and those who are in the corporate offices. Two sets of 
rules, both working, both spending a career perhaps trying to make a 
company successful but treated differently when it comes to retirement.
  Under the House pension bill, hardworking employees and retirees are 
punished when executives do not appropriately fund their pension plans, 
when the executives manipulate the pension plans to improve the bottom 
line, when the executives manipulate the pension plans so that they can 
get stock options so the company appears that it is doing better than 
it is, when they manipulate the pension plan so that they can terminate 
that pension plan. These employees then are denied the payouts. They 
are denied the benefit increases. They are denied the COLAs. That 
simply is not fair, and it is wrong, and this motion to instruct tells 
the conferees to stop it, to stop this privilege, to stop this 
discrimination against hardworking employees with their pensions.
  Executives are exempt from these restrictions under the pension plan 
if their plans are underfunded between 60 and 80 percent. They can take 
a lump sum pension plan. They can take it and leave the company. They 
get their benefit increases. They get their COLAs. And they frequently 
have taken the money and run.
  The House pension bill says that retiring ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond 
can take his $98 million pension in a lump sum and run. It says that 
Lee Raymond can take his golden parachute, his stock options, his cushy 
retirement package worth $400 million and run. He gets his lump sum. He 
gets his COLA. He gets his benefit increases. He gets his stock 
options, his pension increases, and his golden parachute. He gets all 
of that on top of the $686 million he earned from 1993 to 2005.
  But what happens to the employees? If that pension plan is not funded 
above 80 percent, those employees do not get a lump sum payment. They 
are stuck in that plan. They cannot exercise that choice.

  So here is old Mr. Raymond, Mr. Raymond of ExxonMobil. He gets to 
take $98 million out. Two of the pension plans are funded at about 60 
percent. Mr. Raymond gets to take his money and go on his merry way.
  The employees, the roughnecks, the people in the oil fields, in the 
refineries, in the offices, in the research centers, they are stuck. 
They are stuck. They cannot take a lump sum payment.
  But it does not just apply to Exxon. This is just the most egregious 
case where they made a decision that he would walk away with $400 
million in benefits, a $100 million lump sum payment, and the employees 
get none of that. But that is essentially what Ken Lay did, too. Ken 
Lay insured their pension plans. They take them off the books. They 
take them off the records so that, no matter what happens, when they go 
into bankruptcy, they are protected.
  So here is what happens: we are paying over $3 a gallon for gasoline. 
That has made Mr. Raymond at Exxon a lot of money. Mr. Raymond has been 
earning an average of about $144,000 a day. He has a golden parachute 
worth $400 million; and the House bill says to Mr. Raymond, you go 
ahead and take your lump sum. It says to Ken Lay, you go ahead and take 
your lump sum. It says to the CEO of United Airlines, you go ahead and 
take your lump sum even though you are putting your pension plan into 
bankruptcy. You can do that. You can protect yourself.
  Well, the President of the United States, he has not gotten a lot 
right, but he got this right. He said if it is good for the crew, it is 
good for the captain. And that is what this motion to instruct says. It 
says that we have got to stop manipulating these pension plans for the 
benefit of the employers, for the benefit of the corporate officers, 
for the benefit of those individuals, as opposed to the working people, 
the people who are building these companies every day around the world.
  In the oil industry, people are working in hostile environments, in 
hostile situations all over the world. But when it comes time for their 
pension, they are treated as if it did not matter, as if they had 
nothing to do with the building of the wealth of a great company like 
Exxon or a great company like United. No. They go to court and they 
sever the social contract. They dispose of these people.
  People lost billions of dollars in the United case. Those employees 
were in bankruptcy. They lost their pensions. But when Mr. Tilton, the 
CEO, woke up that morning, he was $15 million richer than when he went 
to bed that night. That is just what he got for taking the company into 
bankruptcy. That does not talk about his pension plans and the rest of 
the protections that he got.
  The time has come, and I think America now sees it, that we have 
allowed the pensions of American corporations to be manipulated to 
provide these kinds of benefits. Pension plans have been used for every 
other purpose except providing a secure retirement to middle-income 
Americans who spend 25 to 30 years helping to build successful 
enterprises in this country. When it comes for their retirement, they 
are second-class citizens.
  Vote for this motion to instruct and stop that kind of treatment of 
America's workers.
  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, in the late 1990s, Congress started down the road of 
providing workers more investment advice to help them safeguard their 
retirement security. And who led the way? The House Republicans.
  Four years ago, after Enron and other corporate meltdowns, Congress

[[Page H2073]]

started down the road of giving workers and retirees more freedom to 
diversify in their retirement plans while prohibiting senior corporate 
executives from selling company stock during blackout periods when 
workers are unable to change investments in their own plans. And who 
led the way? The House Republicans.
  Several years ago, Congress started down the road of reforming the 
defined benefit pension system to benefit workers, retirees, and 
taxpayers alike. Who led the way? The House Republicans.
  And just last year, as Congress finally moved on defined benefit 
reform for the first time in over 20 years, those efforts included 
proposals to address concerns over excessive executive compensation 
packages, even though many argue that this issue is more appropriately 
addressed within the context of corporate governance, not pension 
reform. And once again who led the way? House Republicans.
  Today, as we debate this politically motivated motion to instruct and 
as our friends on the other side of the aisle try to tie the issue to 
gas prices or certain companies, they are leaving out an important 
fact. During each of the pension reform efforts I just described, 
including those addressing executive compensation, our colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle were late to the party, or entirely absent. 
Only now, in the heat of a political season, are they finally engaging 
on this issue. Unfortunately, this transparent exercise in partisan 
politics will do nothing to enhance workers' retirement security.

                              {time}  1945

  Last year, when the Education and Workforce Committee crafted the 
Pension Protection Act, we took aim at the unfair practice of awarding 
excessive executive compensation packages when worker and retiree 
pension benefits remained at risk. Our goal: to hold companies and 
their pension plan managers accountable to the workers and retirees who 
rely on the well-being of both.
  Our bottom line was this: workers and retirees who are questioning 
the health of their pension plans deserve to know that their companies' 
executives don't have the option of using a golden parachute to escape 
financial hardship on their own. That is a philosophy that garnered the 
support of 70 of our Democrat colleagues last year when the Pension 
Protection Act passed here on the House floor.
  We may hear from some of those Members today, and they may claim they 
supported the bill to move the process forward, in spite of some 
reservations. But the need to move the process forward is precisely the 
reason why we must vote down this politically motivated motion to 
instruct. The process is moving forward. We are in conference with the 
Senate on this bill, and executive compensation is one of the issues 
still to be addressed. To tie the hands of our conferees would 
circumvent that process and would hurt, not help, in our negotiations 
with the Senate.
  Our colleagues may be interested to know that the executive 
compensation language included in the bipartisan Pension Protection Act 
is actually broader in terms of the number of executives it could 
impact than the language included in this politically motivated motion 
to instruct. That is right. The Pension Protection Act applies 
executive compensation limitations to a wider scope of executives who 
may currently have access to these golden parachutes, executives who 
are directly responsible for the well-being of both the company and the 
plan, while the Democrat motion would place restrictions on only a 
chosen few in each company. So if we are truly looking for good policy 
and not just politics, this motion to instruct represents a significant 
step backward.
  Here is what the Pension Protection Act will do: it establishes 
strong, new protections that restrict the funding of executive 
compensation arrangements, either directly or indirectly, if an 
employer has a severely underfunded plan funded at 60 percent or less.
  Moreover, the bill requires plans that become subject to these 
limitations to notify affected workers and retirees. In addition to 
letting workers know about the limits, this notice must alert workers 
when funding levels deteriorate and benefits already earned are in 
jeopardy.
  So beyond simply tightening the grip on excessive executive 
compensation, the Pension Protection Act will require that workers are 
provided more information than ever before about the status of their 
hard-earned pensions.
  Mr. Speaker, simply put, when the risk of losing pension benefits is 
imminent for rank-and-file workers, the Pension Protection Act requires 
executives to also experience the same risk; contains strong, new 
protections for workers, retirees and taxpayers; and it includes 
limitations on anti-worker executive compensation arrangements.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the motion to instruct and 
reject this attempt to obscure progress on the pension reform.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to 
the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
  (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California for 
yielding, and I rise in support of his amendment.
  I am one of the Members of the minority party that wanted to vote to 
move this bill forward, and I said when I did there were things we 
needed to fix. Well, this is one of them, and voting for Mr. Miller's 
amendment is a great way to tell the conferees to fix it.
  ExxonMobil made the highest profit in the history of corporate 
America. What a lot of people don't know about it is that in 2005, 
ExxonMobil's pension plan was only 72 percent funded. For every $100 
they needed for pensions, they only had $72. They did, however, find 
the money to pay a $98 million pension payment to their departing CEO.
  Now, this just doesn't seem right. A pension plan that is badly 
underfunded should not be making a huge payout of that description. So 
the majority set out to do something about it, and they did. Here is 
what the majority did. They said that if a plan is less than 80 percent 
funded, then the workers might have to give something up. They might 
have to give up their cost-of-living adjustment, they might have to 
give up the right to a lump sum payment when they retire. Just sort of 
spread the pain around. But the House provision also says that as long 
as the plan is at least 60 percent funded, you can do what was done for 
the CEO of ExxonMobil and pay him the Moon and the sky.
  Think about that for a minute. It was almost as if this proposal was 
written with this gentleman in mind, because the Exxon plan was 72 
percent funded in 2005. That means that it was low enough that you 
could go to the rank-and-file and restrict and reduce their pension 
benefits but high enough that you could still make the $98 million 
jackpot payment to the departing CEO. This is indefensible.
  The Senate did something very different. The Senate said that what is 
good for the captain is good for the crew and vice versa. They listened 
to the President's admonition, and they have a provision that has a 
more precise and fair measure of equality. It says that if you are in a 
position where employee benefits have to be in some way restrained, 
and, by the way, those restraints are much less severe than those in 
the House bill, then so must there be restrictions on the executive.
  What would have happened if the provision that Mr. Miller supports 
and this House ought to support applied to ExxonMobil? Here is what 
would have happened: they would have said to the departing CEO: We are 
sorry. Because we haven't taken our record high profit and made our 
pension fund fully funded, you can't get your $98 million. So until the 
people who worked in the refineries and drove the trucks and put out 
the payroll and did all the things the rank-and-file does, until their 
pensions are taken care of, yours can't be either.
  This is supposed to be a Congress that follows the principles of 
family values. In my family, pain is equally shared. As a matter of 
fact, it is not equally shared. Those who are strongest and most able 
bear more pain than those who are weakest and least able. This is a 
distorted version of those values.
  So Mr. Miller is asking for simple equality. He is reflecting a 
provision that nearly a unanimous Senate supported. So should we. Vote 
``yes'' for

[[Page H2074]]

Mr. Miller's proposal, and bring back some sanity and justice to this 
system.
  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes 
to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this motion to 
instruct, and I commend my colleague, Congressman Miller, for filing 
this motion and bringing the pressing issue of worker and executive 
parity to the floor for debate.
  Under the pension reform bill passed by the House, a pension plan 
that is less than 80 percent funded would not be allowed to increase 
benefits or establish new benefits for its workers, regardless of the 
reason for the underfunding. But as has been pointed out by Mr. Miller 
and Mr. Andrews, while worker pensions are held stagnant, executive 
pensions remain unrestricted until the plan is less than 60 percent 
funded. This is patently unfair to workers.
  The American people can understand that when workers are being 
treated in a way that diverges from the people who run the companies 
and when the game is fixed to make sure that the CEOs receive 
incredible pensions, well, the workers are cheated. People can 
understand that.
  Pension plans are administered and funded by companies, not workers. 
Yet, under H.R. 2830, the workers are punished for faulty management of 
plans. This restriction undermines workers' retirement security, and it 
is contrary to the purpose of ERISA.
  The past decade is littered with examples of increasing executive pay 
and pensions while workers' pensions were underfunded or even 
terminated. In 2002, for example, U.S. Airways CEO Stephen Wolf 
received a lump sum pension of $15 million. Six months following that 
executive payout, U.S. Airways filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. One 
eventual outcome of that bankruptcy was the termination of the pilots' 
pension plan. The CEO, $15 million; the workers, their pension plan is 
terminated.
  Stories with a similar theme can be shared about United Airlines and 
Delta: executive receives a protected pension benefit or extra stock 
options while workers are left with terminated pension plans and a cut 
in benefits.
  As has been said before, ExxonMobil's outgoing CEO, the same 
ExxonMobil that is gouging people at the pump, their CEO is going to 
get $98 million in a lump sum pension payment while the company's 
overall funding for workers and retirees remains only 72 percent 
funded. It is time for these disparities to end.
  Although this motion to instruct is not going to be able to restore 
the pensions of those workers already harmed by executive abuse, it 
will make a difference to others. Pensions are not just investments to 
a worker. To a worker, a pension is a vital piece of retirement 
security.
  Pension plans do not belong to the companies; they belong to the 
workers. They are the workers' money. They are the workers' futures. 
They are the property of the workers. We have a duty to ensure that 
workers' pensions are not subject to unfair restrictions while those 
controlling the plans receive bonuses.
  Millions of American families are watching this debate, and they are 
wondering, whose side are we on?
  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not sure it will take me 3 minutes to talk about a 
very basic value that I think we can all agree on, and that is 
fairness.
  The majority's pension bill is unfair, frankly, to, workers. When a 
pension plan is underfunded, workers get penalized, but the corporate 
chief executive officers and the executives, the people that are 
actually at fault for the underfunding, they get a walk on this 
situation. They get a free ride. That is unfair. It is unfair that the 
companies treat their executives so well when rank-and-file members are 
suffering.
  There is no way that Federal policy ought to sense that kind of 
activity or inequitable treatment. Our pension laws have to treat 
workers fairly.
  Under the House bill, when funding levels fall on a tax-qualified 
pension below 80 percent, then workers can't get the benefit increases, 
can't get a cost-of-living adjustment, can't get a lump sum pension 
payment. But under the House bill, executives can continue to lavish 
themselves with benefits under the non-qualified plans with no 
restrictions.
  Executives don't feel the pinch until funding levels drop below 60 
percent. At that point, executives are prohibited from transferring 
corporate assets to executive compensation.
  The Senate bill provides for more equitable treatment of executives 
and workers. Under that bill, workers do not lose their cost of living 
adjustments or their lump sum payment options at 80 percent. CEO 
pensions are restricted if pension plans fall to less than 80 percent 
of funding and the company is a credit risk.
  Congress is the people's House. It ought to be about ensuring 
fairness, in the pension process as well as in other areas. It ought to 
be about leveling the playing field and making sure that workers and 
executives are subject to the same pension rules.
  Mr. Miller's motion directs the pension conferees to apply the same 
benefit restrictions to workers and CEOs. This motion to instruct is 
about fairness, it is about the very thing that this, the people's 
House, ought to be about. I think the people are going to be looking at 
this vote, and, just as Mr. Kucinich said, they are going to be 
wondering, whose side are we on? We ought to be on the side of 
fairness, on the side of equity and on the side of the workers in this 
matter in treating everybody fairly and equitably.
  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to 
the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean).
  Ms. BEAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Mr. Miller's motion to instruct. I 
supported H.R. 2830 when it was passed by the House in December, and I 
fully expected that an improved version would return from conference. 
One improvement we can make today addresses the concerns our 
constituents have about the inequitable treatment of retirement 
compensation for employees and executives.

                              {time}  2000

  Sadly, over the last few years, hundreds of thousands of hardworking 
Americans have had their company pensions severely cut, in some cases 
after 30 or 40 years of loyal service. Their companies have justified 
these pension cuts with the argument that cuts are necessary to remain 
competitive. But, at the same time, these same companies are providing 
lavish bonuses and compensation to their executives.
  Well, I believe it is important for companies to offer competitive 
compensation packages to recruit the best executives. I do not believe 
executives should be rewarded because of or in spite of the cuts that 
they have made to the pensions of their employees and retirees. 
Instead, executives should be held accountable for the mismanagement 
and underfunding of their pensions.
  When companies underfund or dump employees' pensions while handing 
out golden parachutes to their top executives, they are not 
demonstrating the kind of corporate citizenship American workers and 
taxpayers expect.
  Mr. Speaker, that is why I urge you to join me in supporting the 
Miller motion to instruct. The Miller motion will promote parity 
between the compensation packages executives receive with the pensions 
employees have earned. By doing so, perhaps executives will finally be 
given the incentive needed to fully fund and protect the pensions of 
their employees. It is about time for pension parity and fairness.
  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to 
the gentlemen from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, Lee Raymond, $400 million. He was not at 
ExxonMobil all that long. So it figures

[[Page H2075]]

out to $135,000 a day in his pension payoff.
  Now, remember, he can get a huge lump sum because he is an executive. 
But a worker cannot, because there is different standards that apply. 
For the execs, if they have funded 60 percent of their liability for 
their pension plan, big bonuses, $400 million. For a line worker, nah, 
sorry, you are not at 80 percent. You cannot get it. That is the way it 
is at ExxonMobil.
  Let me give another example, what happens when the companies do go 
belly up. United Airlines. Talking to a flight attendant. She did not 
meet the cut. She was not age 50, although she had worked at the 
airline 28 years. So she did not meet the cut for the people to get a 
more generous accommodation. She is now 49 years old. If she works 
until age 65, at which point she will have 45 years in with the 
airline, 45 years, she will get $12,000 a year, $1,000 a month. But 
those execs who guided United into bankruptcy and then guided United 
back out of bankruptcy by shedding things like pension obligations get 
very huge bonuses. Is that not a great world?
  Now, I just kind of figured it out. For her, you know, she will have 
worked about 17,000 days. And so if she lives 20 years, at $12,000 a 
year, she is going to get somewhere around a buck and a half a day 
pension.
  Now this guy gets $135,000 a day for the time he put in. Is that 
fair? I do not think the American people think that is fair. It is not 
right. It has got to stop. And if you cannot vote for this, shame on 
you.
  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the important thing is not all of the talk, the 
important thing is the action. As I said earlier, the Republicans have 
led the action in bringing this bill to the floor. We are leading the 
action in getting the conference report done. We do not want to do 
anything to hold up that process.
  It is important that we vote ``no'' on this motion to instruct and 
that we move forward on bringing this final pension conference to the 
bill so that we can save workers' pensions.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, 
this debate is quite fundamental. It is about fairness. I have worked 
in a lot of oil refineries. I have worked in very cold mornings and 
very cold nights, and I have worked at the top of cracking towers, and 
I have cleaned out tanks, and I have worked on the ships that moved the 
oil across the seas.
  I thought every day I was working in those efforts I was working hard 
and trying to have that company be a success so they could pay me and I 
could support my family.
  I am sure that is how many workers work, whether they work for 
Chevron or Exxon or IBM or anyone else. People in America take their 
work very, very seriously. It identifies them. It is important to them. 
They show up. They do their job.
  Yet the system is structured against them, and this pension system is 
completely structured against them. Because whether it is Enron or 
whether it is Exxon or whether it is IBM, what we see is the constant 
manipulation of the pension plans of these workers to benefit the CEOs.
  This amendment says a very simple thing. It says, you have to treat 
these workers the same. You do not get to put one worker in a trick box 
because you do not fund the pension at 80 percent, so, therefore, they 
cannot have the choice of a COLA or lump sum or an annuity plan.
  But the CEO, if it is not funded, if it is only funded at 60 percent, 
they can run the gamut. They can take whatever choice they want. They 
can take their money now and leave. If they think the company is not 
going to do well, take a lump sum, secure yourself, go buy an annuity.
  But the average worker does not get to do that, and that is why 
millions of American families now are feeling so terribly threatened 
about their retirement future, because they do not know whether or not 
this pension will continue to be manipulated.
  And the fact of the matter is, the House bill, as it was reported, 
continues to let people manipulate the pensions of hardworking 
Americans for the benefit of the executives and the CEOs; and that is 
why we are saying we want a fairer bill like what was passed in the 
Senate that treats people similarly.
  What is the incentive for the company to fund its pension plan above 
80 percent so that these workers can get a COLA, so that these workers 
can get a lump sum payment? None. None. There is no price to be paid 
for being at 80 percent.
  You get all of the benefits you want as the CEO, as the president of 
the company, as the executive secretary, as its executive vice 
president. You get all of your benefits. Life is fine for you. It is 
just the thousands of people who are working for you that make the 
company a success that get discriminated against.
  You know, we have had a series of e-hearings where we talked to 
people whose pensions were threatened at United, at Delta, at Delphi, 
at all of those companies.
  You are talking about the livelihood, the absolute livelihood of 
those people in terms of their retirement. You are talking about their 
hopes and their aspirations and their dreams for their retirement nest 
egg, what they were going to do with their life after years of hard 
work.
  And all that can just evaporate through the manipulation of these 
plans by CEOs and executives. And it is all legal. It is all allowed 
under the law, and it is allowed under your bill. It is allowed under 
your bill, that kind of manipulation against hardworking people.
  At some point, this House has to ask itself, is that fair? Is that 
just? Is that moral? And the answer is, it is not. When you see the 
turmoil, when you go home and talk to your constituents and they talk 
about the foreclosure of their plans and their dreams for their 
retirement, when they talk about the burden now of trying to take care 
of a sick spouse because their retirement has been reduced, their 
retirement has been eliminated, they have been given some measly 
payout, then you start to understand how unfair this pension system is 
in this country and how badly it has been manipulated.
  It is not me that is saying that. A few months ago, the Wall Street 
Journal ran almost a full page article on the many, many, many ways 
that pension plans are manipulated to benefit the shareholders, to 
benefit the stock options, to benefit the compensation plans, to 
benefit the retirement plans of CEOs. So all of those benefits, to the 
detriment of the workers.
  They are tricked up every year on assumptions of income, assumptions 
of interest rates, assumptions of payouts, assumptions of longevity. 
All of those things are used to manipulate the pension plans; and, 
generally, the result is that the worker is left holding the bag. It is 
one of the reasons we have so many plans that are underfunded.
  Exxon has all of this profit. Think if they funded their plan from 72 
percent to 80 percent. These employees would have a choice. But if they 
do not do that, they do not have to worry about these employees having 
a choice.
  That is what is being addressed in the conference committee. It is 
about this fundamental fairness for hardworking people. When you lose 
your pension or a significant portion of your pension when you are 50, 
53, 55, 58 years old, where do you go as a middle-class working person 
in this country to regather those assets so you can have the retirement 
that you were planning on and your spouse was planning on?
  Where do you go to get that, to take care of your health care needs 
in your retirement years? To take care of your rising energy costs in a 
country without an energy policy? Where do you go to get those 
resources? The answer is you do not go anywhere.
  Maybe you take a job after retirement, some part-time job because you 
lost what you were planning on, you lost what you were paid into 
because of this corporate manipulation. This amendment, this motion to 
instruct is simply about the fairness with which we are going to treat 
working people in this country.
  And are we going to put an end to it? We would like to do it under 
the slogan of President Bush, who talked about the equity, how people 
should have been treated the same at Enron. But, no, that CEO was lying 
to those people on the bottom floor of that corporation and then 
running up to corporate penthouse and selling his stock secretly

[[Page H2076]]

into a trust and then telling his son to secretly sell his stock.
  They walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars at the time 
that the company was imploding. But they ran downstairs and they told 
the employees, it is a great company; we are on the verge of big 
breakthroughs; buy more stock. Jail is too good for those people.
  And the lives that they have wrecked, we heard testimony in this 
Congress from those people who worked for that company who lost their 
future, who lost their life savings, who lost their retirement, who 
lost their plans.
  Jail is too good for Ken Lay and his ilk. But we have got to stop it 
now when we have the opportunity in the rewrite of the pension bill. 
That is what this motion is about. I urge people in the name of 
fairness and decency, for working people in this country, to vote for 
the Miller motion to instruct.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Motion to 
Instruct Conferees authored by my California colleague, Mr. George 
Miller. While the underlying bill, H.R. 2830, purported to strengthen 
the defined benefit system, the numerous technical changes that were 
proposed for the funding rules that apply to defined benefit plans will 
change how the liabilities under the pension plan are valued and the 
accounting for contributions made. First of all, let me say that I 
fully opposed the bill that passed on December 15, 2005 by a vote of 
294 to 132 because it would cause millions of Americans to receive 
reductions in their pension plan. Furthermore, its provisions would 
facilitate the freezing or complete termination of pension plans by 
corporate boards.
  Under the so-called Pension Protection Act, if an employer funds a 
tax-qualified pension plan under 80 percent, then the covered workers 
cannot receive benefit increases, COLAs, or lump sum pension payments. 
Executives can continue to provide themselves lavish benefits under 
non-qualified plans without any restrictions. Only if funding drops 
below 60 percent, are executives prohibited from transferring corporate 
assets to executive compensation.
  This Motion by the Gentleman seeks to fix a major source of these 
potential dangers to our hard-working constituents. It ensures that 
corporate heads do not profit at the peril of their workers--they will 
have to adhere to the same retirement rules as do their employees. The 
situation surrounding Exxon Mobil's outgoing CEO, R. Lee Raymond 
whereby he was slated to bail out of the corporation with a ``golden 
parachute'' of a $98 million in lump sum pension payment is a slap in 
the face of the notions of corporate ethics and duty to employees and 
shareholders. Raymond's total retirement package, including stock 
options and severance pay--is valued at $400 million. This is just one 
more example of out of control executive pay at American companies.
  As the Motion to Instruct states, Conferees should craft its report 
to apply the same benefit restrictions between workers and CEOs and use 
the earlier effective date of the House bill, December 31, 2005.
  Mr. Speaker, in my state of California, seven oil companies control 
more than 95 percent of the state's refining capacity. That translates 
to thousands of workers whose benefits will be jeopardized by this 
bill. We need to force corporations to institute fairness in their 
pension programs where employees are not treated like animals.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the 
balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the 
yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________