[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6386-6387]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  CONGRESSIONAL REVIEW ACT RESOLUTION

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as we continue this historic effort in 
Congress to repeal harmful regulations, I rise today in support of H.J. 
Res. 66.
  Due to the aggressive regulatory posture taken by the Obama 
administration in its final months, Congress has had to spend a 
significant portion of time repealing regulations under the 
Congressional Review Act, and our level of success has been 
unprecedented.
  Before 2017, only one CRA resolution had ever been successfully 
passed by Congress and signed by the President. If passed and signed, 
H.J. Res. 66 would be the 14th CRA resolution enacted this year. That 
is remarkable. It is unfortunate that we are in this situation, no 
doubt, but our success in rolling back harmful regulations is a 
positive step, in my view and in the view of so many others.
  There is a growing consensus here in Washington and throughout our 
country that the U.S. economy--our workers, businesses, and job 
creators--are horribly overregulated. Regulations promulgated by the 
executive branch take hundreds of billions of dollars out of our 
economy. The resolution before us will repeal a regulation that 
President Obama apparently personally ordered Labor Secretary Tom Perez 
to draft as a gift to certain blue States.
  The regulation eliminated longstanding Federal protections for the 
retirement savings of private sector workers, specifically giving 
States a ``safe harbor'' from the protection that workers have had for 
decades under ERISA if the State requires employers to either set up a 
retirement plan or enroll its employees in a State-run plan.
  These State plans do not have to be portable, nor do they have to 
permit workers to withdraw their savings at any time. States like 
California, Oregon, Connecticut, Maryland, and Illinois are already 
using this authority to impose new mandates on both large and small 
employers, including startup businesses. Some of the mandates apply 
regardless of the size of the business.
  The regulation not only encourages States to impose conflicting and 
burdensome mandates on private sector businesses, but it also 
encourages States to bar private workers' access to their retirement 
accounts, and it would let States invest private workers' retirement 
assets, ignoring provisions in Federal pension law that require prudent 
pension investment practices and that ban kickbacks and self-dealing.
  Some States have already made it clear that once they take control of 
the private worker assets, they intend to invest them just like they 
invest their State pension plan assets.
  For anyone who is following our Nation's current public pension 
crisis, that is not a pretty picture--and that is being kind. Put 
simply, States like California and Illinois shouldn't get a pass on 
investing potentially billions of dollars in private worker retirement 
assets without having to follow Federal rules requiring prudent 
investment practices--rules designed to protect retirement nest eggs of 
hard-working Americans.
  I am all for increasing coverage for employees and workplace 
retirement programs. I have been working with my colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle to address this issue.
  For example, last Congress, the Senate Finance Committee, which I 
chair, unanimously approved the Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act 
of 2016, a bipartisan bill designed to increase voluntary retirement 
savings.
  My bill and others like it provide workable, voluntary solutions to 
give more workers access to retirement plans. I emphasize the word 
``voluntary.'' In America, we have a voluntary defined contribution 
retirement system for private businesses, and the voluntary approach 
with appropriate incentives for workers and employers is far better 
than the one taken by the Obama administration and former Labor 
Secretary Tom Perez, which would take us down the path toward 
government-mandated and government-run retirement plans. That is not 
really hyperbole. That is essentially the stated purpose of these types 
of regulations.
  The current retirement savings system clearly demonstrates the 
superiority of the free market over government mandates when it comes 
to government savings. Private retirement savings vehicles, like 
401(k)s and IRAs that have been encouraged but not mandated by Federal 
laws have produced nearly $14 trillion in wealth and savings for the 
middle class.
  Let me repeat that. Private retirement savings vehicles, with 
encouragements and investor protections but not mandates, have produced 
nearly $14 trillion in wealth and savings for middle-class Americans.
  I agree that we need to enhance this system to give more workers 
access and incentives to participate, but there is absolutely no 
justification for any effort to reinvent the retirement savings system 
in order to give primacy to government-run plans. I can only wonder why 
States think they will be able to produce better results than the 
private retirement savings system, which has been an unqualified 
success. I have to wonder how some of my colleagues who value consumer 
financial protection, as I do, would want to see abandonment of rules, 
under the guise of a safe harbor, that erode protections for the 
savings of workers and future retirees.
  We can do our part to undo this harmful regulation by passing H.J. 
Res 66. Toward that end, I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor 
of this resolution.

[[Page 6387]]

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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