Congressional Record, Volume 152 Issue 99 (Tuesday, July 25, 2006)

[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 99 (Tuesday, July 25, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H5809-H5813]
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--
(1) to agree to the provisions contained in subsections (a)
through (d) of section 601 of the Senate amendment (relating
to prospective application of age discrimination, conversion,
and present value assumption rules with respect to cash
balance and other hybrid defined benefit plans) and not to
agree with the provisions contained in title VII of the bill
as passed the House (relating to benefit accrual standards);
(2) to agree to the provisions contained in section 413 of
the Senate amendment (relating to computation of guaranteed
benefits of airline pilots required to separate from service
prior to attaining age 65), but only with respect to plan
terminations occurring after September 11, 2001;
(3) to agree to the provisions contained in section 403 of
the Senate amendment (relating to special funding rules for
plans maintained by commercial airlines that are amended to
cease future benefit accruals);
(4) to agree to the provisions contained in section 402 of
the Senate amendment (relating to authority to enter
alternative funding agreements to prevent plan terminations);
and
(5) to recede to the provisions contained in the Senate
amendment regarding restrictions on funding of nonqualified
deferred compensation plans, except that--
(A) 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,
(B) 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 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
(C) 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 such
time as I may consume, and I rise yet again with another motion to
instruct the conferees of H.R. 2830, the pension bill currently in
conference. These repeated motions have become necessary in light of
the failure of the Republican conferees to include all conferees and to
hear all voices.
The House Democrats have been locked out of this conference since
last March, so we have come to the floor again and again with motions
to instruct that would press the conferees to protect America's workers
and retirees from some of the worst proposals in these bills now being
considered in that conference committee.
Again and again, the House has voted overwhelmingly to support these
instructions but the Republican conferees don't seem to be getting the
message, or they don't seem to care. So I am calling on my colleagues
to speak again, and this time a little louder.
This is a new motion that would provide greater protections for
workers' pensions in five critical areas.
First. Protecting older workers' benefits in the cash balance
conversion when pension plans convert from the defined benefit plan.
Two. Ensuring that airline pilots do not see unfair cuts to their
PBGC, the Pension Benefits Guarantee Corporation, because the FAA
required them to retire at age 60.
Three. Providing stretch-out payments for an airline industry that
has been shaken by 9/11 and rising fuel costs.
Four. Allowing for the alternative funding agreements when a plan is
in trouble so that we can avoid the dumping of pension plans like what
happened with the United Airlines debacle.
Five. Providing for more equal treatment of executive and worker
pensions. If we are going to restrict workers' pensions when a plan is
underfunded, we should also restrict the executives that, in many
instances, are responsible for that underfunding of the pension plans.
After all, it is the executives who decide whether or not to fund the
pension plan.
From all the reports we have received to date, it sounds like the
conferees are not moving to include these items in the conference
report, despite the fact that the House has repeatedly instructed the
conferees to include these worker protections.
Let us go through these one by one and let us understand that this is
about the protection of workers, it is about the protection of
retirees, and it is about the protection of their families, because it
is about the pension plans that these workers now have as a matter of
their bargaining, their agreements, and their contracts with their
employers.
What we have now seen, and what too many workers have seen and what
the American public has witnessed, is that employer after employer is
announcing to workers that they are going to forego the support for a
defined benefit plan, they are going to forego the support for health
care benefits, and workers now see they are trapped. In many instances,
those changes, those decisions by the employer snag workers who have no
ability to restore that retirement nest egg that they are going to lose
when the employer decides that they are going to terminate the pension
plan.
That is why we are offering this motion to instruct, to try to
protect the retirement nest egg of hard-working

[[Page H5810]]

Americans and their families from being devastated by the decisions of
the employers on the termination or the dumping of the pension plans
into the PBGC.
So let us walk through what we are trying to do here. First. The
protection for older workers in a cash balance conversion.
This motion to instruct would have the conferees in the Senate make
sure they prohibit against the discrimination of older workers by the
practice of offsetting the earned benefit plans they have now with the
new cash balance plans, and to make sure that we understand what the
GAO has told us; that unless we provide some transition protection,
almost all workers could lose up to 50 percent of their expected
pension benefits.
Listen to that again. Almost all workers could lose up to almost 50
percent of their expected pension benefits. Again, those older workers,
50, 55, 60 years old, will lose the most. Those are the same workers
who have the least ability to save more money for their retirement, to
earn more money for their retirement. They will take the biggest hit.
We are asking that at a minimum, you protect employees that are 5
years away from retirement because they do not have the ability to
secure additional funds for their retirement. It means a dramatic
diminishment of their the retirement plans, of their financial
resources for their retirement, for their health care, for the
sustaining of their families. That is why it is so important to
understand that.
This is what responsible employers have done, whether it is Verizon,
or Honeywell, or Wells Fargo Bank or CSX Railroad. But other employers
have chosen not do this, and now they want the protection of the law as
they take away these benefits of the older workers.
It is also what the Congress chose to do. We chose to provide a
transition for Members of Congress as we changed the retirement plan of
Congress to the TSP plan as opposed to a defined benefit plan. If it is
good enough for Congress, why isn't it good enough for these workers
and for their families?
Obviously, when the Members of Congress have been asked to vote on
this, they have voted overwhelmingly. In 2002, an amendment to take
care of these older workers passed 328-121; in 2003, it passed 258-160;
in 2004, it passed 237-162. The motion to instruct this past April, the
House voted 248-178 to tell the conferees to protect these older
workers.
Unfortunately, either the conferees are hard of hearing or they
simply don't care about these older workers, because it appears that
when the conference report comes back in the next day or two on the
pension bill, these older workers will not be protected.

{time} 1700

Second, the case of the airlines. The motion to instruct would have
the conferees agree to the Senate provision ensuring that pilots get
their full pension guaranteed from the Pension Guarantee Corporation.
They get their full pension, for those who were required to retire at
an early age.
So you have pilots who were required, under Federal law, to retire at
age 60. The pension plan was terminated, through no fault of the
pilots, in many cases because of 9/11 or higher fuel costs, and now
they are being punished because the Pension Guarantee Corporation will
only give you a full benefit if you retire at age 65. They had no
ability to retire at age 65 because Federal law kept them from doing
so. We think that, in fact, we ought to protect those employees.
And the motion would limit the treatment of those pension plans to
those that were terminated after September 11, 2001.
The fix is needed now. United airline pilots are seeing their
pensions cut by tens of thousands of dollars each year under you the
pension guarantee rules. The retirement nest eggs have been devastated,
but they have been twice, once by the unfair dumping of the pension
plans and the PBGC by United, and now because the law says that they
cannot have those full benefits because they retired before 65.
In a motion this past March, the House voted 265-158 to instruct the
conferees to give these pilots their full guarantee. Once again, the
conferees either can't here the House of Representatives, they don't
care about the House of Representatives, or they don't care about these
workers, because they are not choosing to protect these pilots to the
extent to which they should be.
Third, we deal with the question of the airlines. We all know that
airlines have been hurt by skyrocketing fuel prices since 9/11. They
have been hurt by a lack of travel immediately after 9/11, and we have
seen one airline after another go into bankruptcy. We have seen United
Airlines terminate its pension plans and dump $10 billion of liability
onto the PBGC, its workers, its retirees and the taxpayers. We have
seen the U.S. Airways dump its pension plan, and we have read how Delta
is now seeking to dump its pension plan. It would be devastating to
hundreds of thousands of workers across this Nation if more airlines
were permitted to dump their plans into the PBGC.
These provisions that we are asking the conferees to impose give the
airlines the ability to keep their plans going by stretching out their
payments over 20 years instead of 7 years. And these provisions should
be made available to all the airlines, not just a select few airlines.
They should be available to those airlines that have frozen their
plans, as well as those that meet the requirements of the Senate bill
to keep their plans running.
In March, the motion to instruct, the House voted 265-158 to provide
the airlines with these critical reforms, with this lifeline for their
economic health and the well-being of their workers. But the conferees
so far haven't heard us and we need to speak louder.
Fourth, the alternative funding agreements. The motion to instruct
would have the conferees agree to the Senate provisions, which passed
97-2, designed to prevent the pension plan dumping. These provisions
allow the PBGC, the Treasury Secretary to enter into an alternative
funding agreement with an employer if its pension plan is in danger of
being terminated. If workers and retirees are facing the destruction of
their pension plans, Congress should give the PBGC and the Treasury
Departments the flexibility to work out alternatives to termination. If
such alternatives to simply dumping the plan were available during the
United Airline crisis, the largest pension termination in history, it
may have been averted. A lot more needs to be done in this area so that
we don't see just the callous dumping into the bankruptcy of the
pension plans by these corporations that devastates their workers and
their retirees.
Fifth, and maybe this is one of the more serious ones, and that is a
question of executive compensation. This motion to instruct would have
the conferees agree to the Senate provision, again, passed 97-2, on
executive compensation that would treat workers and executive pensions
equally. Under the House bills, workers pension benefits are restricted
if a pension falls below 80 percent funding. But what we see is there
is no benefit on the executives unless it falls less than 60 percent
funding.
What we are saying is what the President of the United States, Mr.
Bush, said during the Enron catastrophe, what is good for the captain
is good for the crew.
Once again, it is the executives that make decisions about funding
these pension plans. But if they fall below 80 percent, the workers get
restricted, but the executives continue to get their pensions, to get
their benefits, to get all of the executive perks in that operation. We
think that that ought to change. We think it is very clear that the
executives, what they have done, in many instances, they ensure their
pension plans outside of the bankruptcy system. So as they take the
company into bankruptcy, they are guaranteed that they will get a life
time pension worth millions of dollars. The workers get bankruptcy and
get devastated and lose half of their benefits if they go to the
Pension Guarantee Corporation.
We believe the President is right. What is good for the captain is
good for the crew, and that we ought to do this.
Again, this past May, in a motion to instruct, the House voted 299-
125 to instruct these conferees. And what do you believe is going to
happen? Apparently, the conferees are going to again ignore that vote.
They are going to ignore the will of this House. They are going to
ignore the will of the American people to have equity and fairness

[[Page H5811]]

in the treatment of executives and workers during the troubled times
for pension plans.
So this motion to instruct is to take those five areas and to
instruct the conferees at this 11th hour to deal with the fairness and
the equity in the Pension Reform Bill to make sure that hardworking
Americans don't have to crash to the floor, lose their homes, lose
their retirement, lose their health care as we restructure pensions,
and to make sure that we do treat the million dollar a year or the $10
million or the $20 million, $50 million a year executive, that we treat
them the same as we treat the workers.
Very few workers in this country have any say in whether or not these
pension plans are underfunded. We saw that in the case of Enron. They
were running downstairs telling the employees to buy the Enron stock,
and they were running upstairs and selling their stock into the market
because they knew the company was going to collapse.
We think people ought to be treated fairly. They ought to be treated
equally and clearly, clearly, we ought not to discriminate against
older workers. That is what this motion to instruct does. Hopefully,
when we send it, this motion to instruct, later this evening, the
conference committee will hear us. They will hear the American people.
They will quit ignoring the American people. They will quit dealing
just with the special interests inside the Beltway, and doing what is
good for the special interests, as opposed to what is good for the
American public, what is good for the retirement systems in this
country, what is good for the economy in this country, and what is fair
to the workers and to their families.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this politically
motivated motion to instruct. I believe we are nearing the end of the
pension reform conference, and this motion is nothing more than a last
minute, desperate attempt to slow the most substantial retirement
security reforms in a generation.
Like the famous Yogi Berra saying, this is deja vu all over again.
Throughout this pension conference, opponents of pension reform have
attempted to distract from the process through these obstructionist
tactics, and here we are again ready to deal with yet another.
The latest motion to instruct, or motion to obstruct as is truly the
case, is little more than a random jumble of unrelated issues being
discussed in the ongoing pension conference. From purely a policy
perspective, it is irresponsible to mix and confuse these complicated
issues in this fashion. Members with opinions on one or more of these
issues should not be forced into contradicting positions on other
issues. But let's be very clear up front. This has nothing do with
policy. It is all about politics.
This pension legislation we are crafting is complicated, and those
who support passing legislation to fix our pension system are working
hard to bring a final bill before the full House and Senate for
consideration. What the opponents of reform are doing today is putting
their good names on a bull-in-a-china-shop exercise. They have cherry-
picked a handful of Senate positions that have evolved over time. It is
reckless and, in the end, it will do nothing to advance the process.
Here are just a handful of its flaws.
Number 1, this motion to instruct would tie the hands of those who
voluntarily offer hybrid plans, which are the sole bright spot in the
defined benefit system. To place restrictions on a system that actually
provides more generous benefits for the majority of workers than do
traditional plans sets a very bad precedent.
Number 2, this motion to instruct also would increase the deficit of
the PBGC, which is exactly the opposite of what we are trying to do. If
this provision were applied, taxpayers could count on an additional
cost of $2.5 billion to the PBGC over the next 10 years.
Number 3, this motion to instruct would assign the PBGC which, in
some respects, is like an insurance company, with developing industrial
policy for the troubled plans via a ``workout program.'' This would pit
companies against one another. And this process would be steered by a
quasi-governmental agency, often dependent upon the whims of the
administration in power.
And finally, this motion to instruct attempts to score partisan
points on the issue of executive compensation. But this is an issue the
House bill already responsibly addresses, and any final conference will
do the same. The House-passed pension reform restricts golden parachute
agreements when the rank and file plan is considered at-risk.
Mr. Speaker, this last ditch attempt to distract from our reform
efforts is as transparent as it is desperate. Fortunately, the end of
this conference is in sight, and the reforms needed to ensure the
defined benefits system remains viable for generations to come are
nearly in place.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the motion to instruct, and
reject this attempt to obscure our progress.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 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 for yielding. I rise in
support of his motion.
I want to try to explain, Mr. Speaker, to our colleagues what one of
the issues in Mr. Miller's motion has to do with.
Let's assume that we have a pension plan that is only 75 percent
funded; that is to say, it has $75 for every $100 that it needs to meet
its pension obligations. Under the bill that passed the House, the
people that run that plan could say the following: The CEO of the
company could continue to get 100 percent of the benefits that he was
entitled to under the plan, the wealthiest person in the company. But
the person who cleans his office at night could have her pension cut.
Let me say this again. If the plan had $75 for every $100 that it
needs, under the provision the House passed, the CEO of the company
gets every nickel that he is entitled to. No cut at all. But the
custodian who cleans his office at night, or the clerk who types his
letters, or the person who delivers his documents, could have their
pension cut considerably.
Now, this is not right. This is not right. If some employees are
going to take a cut in their pension, then it seems fair that everyone
should share equally in that punishment.
One of the great principles of the American economy is that a rising
tide lifts all boats. When a company prospers, so does everyone in the
rank and file, so does every shareholder, so does every investor, one
would hope. And lots of decisions are predicated upon that principle.
We want the executives to flourish and prosper, because if they do,
they will make better decisions for the people who clean the offices
and type the letters and deliver the documents.
But the corollary to that principle is, if the boat is sinking, then
some people can't jump off the boat into a life boat while everybody
else stands there as the ship goes down. That seems rather fair.
One might call this the Titanic principle, you know, where the people
who were in the luxury compartments got to the life boats first, but
the people locked in steerage sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Senate has a very different provision. Ninety-seven senators
voted in favor of this provision; and it said, very simply, the same
rule that applies to the lady who cleans the office at night should
apply to the CEO who sits in the office all day long. Ninety-Seven
senators voted in favor of that provision. Two voted against it.
Mr. Miller's motion wisely says that this House should go on record
as saying that is the provision we ought to adopt. Vote ``yes.''
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
Mr. KUCINICH. This is really about fairness. It is about values.
I rise in strong support of Congressman Miller's motion to instruct.
I commend my colleague, Mr. Miller, for his leadership in working to
ensure that pension reform puts workers first.
This motion to instruct highlights a number of important provisions
that

[[Page H5812]]

make clear the priority of our efforts. It must be workers. Pensions
are not just investments to workers. To a worker, his or her pension is
the centerpiece of economic security.

{time} 1715

The promise of that pension becomes more precious as workers move
closer to their own retirement. It is imperative that our efforts
protect older workers. This motion to instruct recognizes that
conversions from traditional defined benefit plans to cash balance
plans harm older workers. Providing transition protections for older
workers should not be a choice for employers but a requirement.
Hardworking employees should not be rewarded for their service with a
denial of pension benefits. I urge my colleagues to help ensure that
older workers' pensions are protected.
This motion to instruct also highlights the importance of equity
between workers and executives. Under the pension reform bill passed by
this 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 while worker
pensions are held stagnant, executive benefits remain unrestricted
until the plan is less than 60 percent funded. Patently unfair to
workers. Pension plans are administered and funded by companies, not
the workers. Workers should not be punished for faulty management of
plans.
The past decade is littered with examples of increasing executive pay
and pensions while worker pension plans were underfunded or even
terminated. In 2002, U.S. Airways' CEO 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 the bankruptcy
was the termination of the pilots' pension plan. The CEO, $15 million;
the pilots . . .
Stories with a similar theme can be shared about United Airlines and
Delta. Executives receive a protected pension benefit or extra stock
options, while workers are left with terminated pension plans and a cut
in benefits. Although this motion to instruct will not restore the
pensions of those workers already harmed by executive abuse, it will
make a difference to many others.
Pension plans do not belong to companies. They belong to workers.
They are the workers' money and the workers' future. Pensions are the
property of the workers, and as such, we have a duty to ensure that
workers' pensions are protected from practices which threaten our
security.
I urge my colleagues to support the Miller motion to instruct. I urge
my colleagues to remember that there are millions of Americans out
there who are looking to this moment to decide whether we are going to
stand up for working men and women or we are going to turn them aside
in order to slaver over the economic advantage that is granted to their
executives.
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I believe we are nearing the end of the pension reform conference. It
has been quite a roller coaster ride, indicating the delicate balance
that we have established to get to the point where we are today.
I know many of our colleagues are anxious to see work completed on
this conference report so that improvements to our pension system can
actually be put in place. As vice chair of this conference committee, I
share that view. The fact is that in recent days a tremendous amount of
progress has been made towards completing this conference, and I am
optimistic that we will produce a finished product that the vast
majority of our colleagues can and will support. That is what we should
be spending our time on--completing the work and protecting and
improving workers' retirement security--not engaging in the partisan
charade that this motion at its core represents.
Our goal is and always has been to ensure our defined benefit system
remains viable for generations to come. This will serve the interests
of workers, retirees, and taxpayers alike. This motion to instruct does
not.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the
balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague on the other side keeps saying that this is
somehow a partisan charade to score points. There are just a little
over 200 Members of the Democratic Party in this Congress, and these
votes have carried 258, 308, 299, 237. Clearly, there is bipartisan
agreement that as we write this pension bill, as we deal with pension
reform, we ought to make an effort to try to deal with the plight of
these workers in the fairest possible way we can.
Let us look again quickly at what we are trying to do here. We are
trying, one, to protect older workers who have a very limited ability
to gather additional economic resources as they end their work years,
to make up for a dramatic cut in their pension plans. All we are saying
is that those workers ought to be protected, those who are 5 years away
from the pension plan. Not a radical proposal. Not a partisan proposal.
It passed the Senate 97-2. By an overwhelming bipartisan vote, we have
asked the conferees to invoke that measure.
We have also tried to say that those airline pilots that were forced
to retire at age 60 due to Federal law, a Federal law that we are now
considering changing to 65, but because of the bankruptcy of the
company and the dumping of the plan by United and others into the PBGC,
those pilots ought not to be harmed because they had no ability to
reach 65 in their employment. The Federal law made them quit, and they
ought not to be harmed in that situation. They may have never been
harmed but for 9/11, but for the run up in fuel prices. They didn't do
anything wrong, but they find themselves taking a double hit through
the bankruptcy and through the PBGC rules.
Then we said let us try to save the airline industry. Let us stretch
this out. For those plans, mind you, they have frozen their pension
plans. They comply with the requirements of the Senate bill, and we
have said let us give them time to recover their economic health and
hopefully save these pension plans. We do not know yet, but again on a
bipartisan basis overwhelmingly, the House voted to do that.
Then we said let us make sure that we exhaust all of the remedies
before we dump these pension plans onto the taxpayers. Let us make sure
that we have exercised all of the effort, that we have bargained in
good faith, that we have searched every way to avoid this from becoming
a taxpayer liability. Again, passing 97-2, the Senate went in that
direction and we didn't. They refused those amendments to the
legislation.
And, finally, the issue of basic fairness, one that so struck the
people of this Nation when they saw how Enron manipulated the pension
systems, how they manipulated the stock sales to those pension systems
by the executives, and, finally, how they manipulated the company into
the downward spiral of bankruptcy and people lost their entire
livelihoods.
This bill says that, as Mr. Kucinich pointed out, if this plan is not
at least 80 percent funded, you can provide no new benefits to the
employees no matter what the reason for that underfunding is; but
unless it is 60 percent underfunded, you can keep providing benefits to
the executives. There is just a fundamental element of fairness. And
again I think by over 258 votes, on a bipartisan basis, the House sent
these instructions to the conferees. This is part of the legislative
process.
I am here because this is a privileged motion. We recognize the need
to communicate from the full House to the conferees on measures that we
continue to favor as the conference committee goes forward, and we have
done that. But the fact of the matter is that now it appears, certainly
from newspaper reports, which I wouldn't know because we have been shut
out of this conference committee. The Republicans do not conference
with the Democrats in the House. They do not honor that democratic
principle. They do not honor that democratic history. So we only know
what we have been told through the grapevine. We know in talking to the
Democratic and Republican Senators, and we know a little bit by what we
read in the press, and it appears that, in fact, in each and every one
of these points where the House has spoken with an overwhelming voice
to protect the pensions

[[Page H5813]]

of workers, of retirees, and of their families, that each and every one
of these is going to be disregarded by the conferees.
This is a last attempt to try to bring some openness to this
conference, to try to bring some bipartisan participation to this
conference committee, and to bring the will of the House, which I think
in these cases when we are hearing about pensions, when you go home and
you talk to your constituents and you have your town hall meetings, you
see how anxious people are about their health care benefits, about
their retirement benefits, about their retirement security.
Yet somehow those conferees cannot get that message. Maybe they have
been in Congress too long. Maybe they are insulated from it. Somehow
they just cannot get it. Well, life outside the Beltway is very
precarious for a lot of employees and a lot of industries. And the
question that comes to us is whether or not we are going to make an
effort to have a pension bill that recognizes the fairness and the
equity.
Again, this is not some partisan bill. This is not some bill thought
up in the last few moments. The fact of the matter is these provisions
are contained, for the most part, in the Senate bill. We do not ask to
go beyond that. In the Senate bill that passed the Senate 97-2. And, in
fact, if we do that, there will be some economic justice for these
retirees and these workers. There will be some economic fairness for
these retirees and these workers. And there will be, most importantly,
some sense of retirement security for millions of Americans that every
day they pick up the paper and they see that yet another group of
employees, another company is making a decision about reducing, getting
rid of, terminating, freezing the pension plans and the health care
benefits of those individuals.
We owe them this legislation to deal with them in a fair fashion, in
an equitable fashion, legislation that can increase the retirement
security of these families.
I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the motion to instruct.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Mr.
Miller's motion to call our colleagues' attention to provisions in the
Senate bill S. 1783, provisions that aim to ensure the very best for
our older workers. These provisions prohibit discrimination against
older workers by eliminating the ``wearaway'' of older worker benefits.
They also provide fair rules to protect workers' pensions in
conversions of traditional pension plans to cash balance pension plans.
In a recent study, the GAO found that, without these transition
protections, almost all workers could lose up to 50 percent of their
expected pension benefits in a cash balance conversion.
The Senate provisions also entail language that will ensure that
airline pilots are protected from unfair cuts to their pension benefits
because of the FAA's mandatory retirement rules. Currently, FAA
regulations require pilots to retire at age 60. The PBGC treats age 60
as an early retirement, and cuts pilots guaranteed benefits as a
result. The Senate provisions would require the PBGC to treat age 60 as
the normal retirement age for pilots and adjust their guaranteed
benefits accordingly.
Under the current House bill, workers see benefit restrictions when a
pension plan falls below 80 percent funding. Executives, on the other
hand, only see limited benefit restrictions much later--at less than 60
percent funding. The Senate bill achieves greater parity than the House
bill in how workers and executives are treated. Over the last several
years, we have seen repeated cases where executives have protected or
even enhanced their own golden parachutes, while cutting or eliminating
workers' pensions. It is time for these unfair practices to end.
The provisions in the Senate bill will help see that this happens and
ensure that America's older workers are treated fairly and with
respect. There are few things worse than working hard for 40 years or
more only to see one's well-being in retirement being compromised by
inadequacies and inefficiencies in pension policy. We have some
retirement-aged folks amongst us, and I encourage my colleagues to
imagine it was our pension up for debate right now. Perhaps it should
be if we do act to protect others'. I therefore urge all of my
colleagues to join Mr. Miller and take the Senate provisions seriously
and support them accordingly.
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.

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