Rep. Miller Says PBGC Withheld Information on Bill

REP. MILLER SAYS PBGC WITHHELD INFORMATION ON PENSION LEGISLATION PASSED BY HOUSE COMMITTEE LAST WEEK

Committee Republicans Approved Major Legislation Despite Having No Information on Its Practical Effects



The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation admitted last week – roughly one hour after the House Education and the Workforce Committee approved legislation that makes dramatic changes to the nation’s private pension system – that it has performed no analysis on the practical effects of that legislation on the pension system in general or the PBGC’s finances in particular.

Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the committee, said today that the PBGC withheld from the committee the fact that it had no information on the practical effects of the bill until after the vote that approved the bill on June 30. Miller sent a letter to PBGC Executive Director Bradley Belt requesting a face-to-face meeting to discuss why the PBGC had failed to respond to his requests for information before the committee approved the legislation. “The only conclusion I can draw is that you intentionally withheld your letter until after the markup based on political considerations,” Miller wrote to Belt.

Miller also renewed his criticism of Republican leaders who introduced the legislation on June 9 and rushed it through the committee without knowing what its real-world impact would be.

The 27 Republicans on our committee voted for a bill that will have serious implications for the lives of 44 million Americans who rely on a defined benefit plan for their retirement, and they did so despite having no information on what those implications are,” said Miller. “The PBGC had an obligation to ask Congress for more time to do an analysis of the bill, but it was silent until one hour after the bill passed. This is just like the Medicare prescription drug bill fiasco, when Congress acted hastily on major legislation even though it lacked basic information about the bill’s costs.”

Miller had made repeated requests for information from the PBGC, the federal pension insurer, in May and June 2005, but did not receive any response until a letter from Belt arrived via email just after 5:00pm on Thursday, June 30, about one hour after the committee had concluded its mark-up of the legislation, H.R. 2830, and voted to send the bill to the full House for consideration.

All 22 Democrats on the committee voted “present” on H.R. 2830, introduced by committee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH), to indicate that they did not have enough information to approve or reject the measure. All 27 Republicans voted yes. At the time, Miller questioned how any member of the committee could vote to approve the bill given that Congress lacked even basic analysis on how the bill would affect companies with defined benefit systems, workers and retirees, and the burgeoning deficit of the PBGC.