[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 22579]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        AIRLINE WORKER ROLLOVER

  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I would like that thank Chairman Baucus 
for his continuing work in helping me address an issue important to 
airline workers whose employers went bankrupt after September 11, 2001.
  I first started working on this issue in 2007 when I introduced 
legislation to allow employees of bankrupt commercial airlines to roll 
their bankruptcy payments into individual retirement accounts to 
provide for a retirement savings option to those airline workers whose 
defined benefit plans were terminated or frozen in bankruptcy 
proceedings.
  My legislation attracted bipartisan support from my colleagues, and 
in 2008, The Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act, WRERA, was 
enacted into law, and we worked together to include a provision to 
allow airline workers to rollover bankruptcy payments into a Roth IRA 
only. While this was an important step, it is also important to take 
the next step and allow workers the additional option to rollover 
bankruptcy payments into a traditional IRA--an option typically 
available for everyone when deciding which retirement vehicle is right 
for them.
  With the assistance of the distinguished chairman, we began the 
process of taking that next step during the 111th Congress. In May 
2010, Chairmen Baucus and Levin included the Airline Worker Relief 
provision with H.R. 4213, the 2010 Jobs Act legislation which extended 
several expiring tax provisions and provided for technical corrections 
to pension funding legislation, and the House of Representatives passed 
the Jobs Act on May 28, 2010.
  On June 16 of this year, Chairman Baucus also included the airline 
worker rollover provision when he introduced his substitute amendment 
to H.R. 4213. However, on June 18, the pension funding relief section 
of H.R. 4213, absent the airline worker rollover provision, was 
included in H.R. 3962, the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare 
Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010. The airline worker 
rollover provision was not included because unlike the other pension 
funding relief items that raised revenue, the rollover provision has a 
modest budgetary cost. Regrettably, the Senate has not since had the 
opportunity to consider the Rollover provision.
  Today Chairman Baucus is proposing a substitute amendment to make 
corrections to the pension funding relief provisions that were enacted 
as part of the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare 
Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010. These items are scored to 
have no revenue effect; so once again, the airline worker rollover 
provision will not be included. I will not object to this amendment, 
but at the same time, it is important for the record to clarify our 
intent to move the airline worker rollover provision on the next 
available and appropriate legislative vehicle.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Cantwell for her work on 
this important provision to help airline workers, and I want to make it 
clear for the record that I will work to include this airline worker 
rollover provision in the next appropriate legislative vehicle.

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