Congratulating the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative on ten years of significant achievement in the search for an HIV/AIDS vaccine, and for other purposes.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

(Mr. McDERMOTT of Washington asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the

gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to correct the record.

The legislation does not require the funding of these plans. Executives can continue to get benefits out of these plans if they are only 60 percent funded. The gentlewoman from California was correct. Workers can only get benefits if they are 80 percent funded.

So the executives can continue to draw down the assets of the corporations, but the employees cannot.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

(Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens).

(Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, this is a complicated piece of legislation and Members of the House and Members of the Senate have struggled with it for some period of time. That struggle really hasn't been completed yet because this legislation was taken from the conference committee and it is here tonight to be passed unilaterally within the House and be presented to the Senate in the future.

It is difficult to understand all of the things that have been done in this legislation, certainly for the Democratic Members of the House since we were not included in this conference committee. We were not invited into any of the sessions, nor was the information shared with us as it was developed during the conference committee because they chose to run it simply on a partisan basis among the House conferees.

But I think it is clear to understand also that this legislation does, in fact, as my colleague from Massachusetts said, miss a number of opportunities. And that is why we are concerned with it tonight.

We understand the changes that have been made that allow companies to continue to underfund those pension plans and then increase the contributions that those plans will have to make in later years, and it is pretty clear that as businesses sit down and make the decisions about the allocation of resources and they look at those increased contributions, the burden will really push them in the direction of freezing or terminating their plans. That is why we see the quote that was given this last day or so, ``We will see an unprecedented number of companies freezing their plans in 2007 because they will recognize the difficulties of the new pension regime.'' That comes from the American Benefits Council, which deals with so many of these plans, because this tilts the table toward the decisions by companies to terminate or to freeze those plans.

And if that happens, of course, we have been warned now, under this legislation by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation that as they contribute less to those plans and then make that decision, it also heightens the likelihood that these underfunding problems will become worse, according to this legislation as represented to us by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. And they also make it clear

the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation that absorbs these plans on behalf of a safety net paid for by other plans that as they suffer from a huge deficit, a $23 billion deficit, they expect that this legislation that is before us tonight will add some $2 billion to that deficit over the next 10 years.

But there are other decisions that the conferees could have made or that you could have made in drafting this bill as you brought it to the floor. You could have erred on the side of working people. You could have made a decision that in these plans that are distressed and underfunded that we would, in fact, treat the employees and the executives alike. But we set two different standards. We said that if your plan is not 80 percent funded, then the employees can get no additional benefits in terms of their retirement out of that plan. But if a plan is only 60 percent funded, executives can continue to draw and add on and accrue pension benefits. So we have set two different standards here. Both people, I assume, are working very hard for the success of that corporation. One is just going to get treated entirely differently than the other. It is a matter of simple fairness. A matter of simple equity. But when we see the greatest disparities in the history of this country for a long time now, when we see these disparities, this bill increases those disparities between the executives and the employees.

You could have made a decision not to harm the pilots that were harmed after 9/11 because they were forced to retire early. Federal law made them retire at 60. Then 9/11 and the high fuel costs come along, and that drives United Airlines into bankruptcy, a bankruptcy I didn't agree with, but they went into bankruptcy; so you lost 40 percent of your pension. PBGC took over their plan, but you lost an additional amount because you retired at 60. Those pilots had no chance. We could have taken care of them in this bill. One would have thought that that was somewhat of a humane thing to do, a compassionate thing to do. They were victims of 9/11. They were victims of the downturn in the travel economy after 9/11. They were victims of high fuel costs. They did not do anything wrong, and Federal law forced them to retire. But we just blew off their cause in this legislation.

The issue of older workers, a missed opportunity there, to make sure, as we transition from defined benefits plans to cash balance plans, that we would protect the oldest of those workers, the closest to retirement, that we would make sure that they would be taken care of because, as we know, people who are 55, 60 years old, 5 years from retirement, have very little opportunity to accumulate the kind of economic resources that are necessary to match the retirement that they were expecting. You didn't have to do it. It was recommended by the administration.

The Secretary of Treasury, former Secretary Mr. Snow, said it should be done. He said he did it in his corporation at CSX. He voted to do it as a member of the board of Verizon. It was done by Honeywell. It was done by Wells Fargo Bank. It was a compassionate thing to do. They still realized the savings that they wanted by changing their pension plans, and I do not object to their doing that. I just thought that we could make an effort to try to protect those people who the GAO tells us would lose almost half of their benefits with those kinds of conversions. But that was not done in this legislation.

So I really think that we ought to understand that those kinds of decisions really do harm a number of people that could have been helped in this legislation, a significant number of people that could have been helped in this legislation. And we could have done some more to try to help keep these plans out of the PBGC.

We could have also made sure that before people went to bankruptcy in the manner in which United did, that they would have made the last ditch effort, the kind of effort that we just talked about earlier, where airlines made these kinds of efforts to freeze their plans, but they did not. But I think before we rush to bankruptcy and then we turn these plans over to the PBGC and maybe ultimately to the taxpayer that there ought to be a burden, there ought to be a showing, there ought to be evidence that, in fact, you made every effort. I am not asking you to destroy the company. I am asking you to make the kind of effort that we saw others make but they chose not to make it at United, and as a result of that, those machinists, those flight attendants, the pilots, the ramp workers, and so many others have taken such a serious hit on their pension benefits with no ability to recover. So those are my objections to this legislation.

We started this session with an unprecedented attack on Social Security. And as people started to look at that attack, and they saw the Federal privatization of Social Security, they started to look at their own pension plans, and they realized, as what we are doing with here today, that their own pension plans are very insecure. There is probably no employer in this country that can tell you that that pension plan will be there for their employees 75 years from now, 65 years from now, and be paying out 80 percent of the benefits. So people have come to realize that they need retirement security. And I do not believe that this legislation provides that kind of security that individuals need.

I recognize the transitions in pension plans. I recognize the changes in pension plans. But I really think that this legislation, in many ways, was drafted looking in the rear-view mirror as opposed to the future of these plans and how we encourage savings and how we encourage participation.

There is no question this legislation deals with some of those issues, but I do not believe that we did the kind of job that will serve us well in the future.

And I would encourage Members to oppose this legislation. We will have a motion to recommit, a motion that will protect those older workers, a motion that will treat those airlines the same. If they all freeze their plans, they should get the same number of years to do that, and we think it will provide them a greater margin of safety if they do that, and provide for that kind of transition and the protection of those pension plans as they originally requested, as the Senate originally voted to do. But the conferees didn't go there, and certainly this legislation being offered in the House tonight didn't go there. But that will be offered in a few minutes.

I urge opposition to this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

I am in its current form.

Mr. Speaker, this motion does two things. First, it sends the pension bill back to committee to include all of the airline protection provisions that were included in the Senate-passed pension bill. Second, it seeks to send back to the committee to add the Senate-passed provisions providing for the transition protections for older workers affected by cash balance conversions.

Both of these are critical to protecting America's workers' pensions and their retirement security. All across America, employees are worried sick about their retirement nest egg. They have seen big airlines like U.S. Air and United cut and run on their obligations to pay promised benefits and are wondering if they are next.

The House bill protects Delta and Northwest and enables them to extend their pension payments over 17 years at the plan's interest rate. However, the bill only provides American and Continental a 10- year payment and at a much lower interest rate, making their pension payments much higher. We would extend the same period of time, work-out time, for the airlines if they chose to provide for the freezing of their plans.

The bill does nothing for airline pilots who are forced to retire at age 60 and who received PBGC pensions reduced by 35 percent because of their age. All airlines were hurt by 9/11 and the skyrocketing fuel prices and the downturn in the economy.

It would be devastating to hundreds of thousands of workers across the Nation if more airlines were permitted to dump their plans into the PBGC. When this happens, the big losers are the employees. Look at what happened to the pilots at United, for example. They had vested pension benefits cut in half. The average pilot lost $1,270 a month. That is why we offer these protections.

Finally, the motion would report back this pension bill to provide for the

protection of older workers who are facing conversions in cash balance plans. This means the older workers who the companies are now putting on notice that they will lower their benefits will now get a substitute plan called a cash balance plan.

Despite overwhelming votes in support of protecting older workers' pensions in the House and Senate, Republican leadership has excluded these vital transition protections. Many workers will lose hundreds of dollars a month in expected retirement benefits. Many of these workers will be in excess of 50 years of age, and it is highly unlikely they will be able to recover the retirement benefits that they have been counting on for many years, that they signed a contract for in exchange for their labor with their employers.

Today, the Congress is getting ready to tell them they are not going to make the employers live up to their agreements, and we are not going to even provide a transition to soften the economic blow when those agreements are changed.

Here is what AARP CEO William Novelli said about the backroom Republican deal for older workers: ``AARP cannot support legislation that would undermine the age discrimination laws and prevent the reduction of pension benefits for older workers, thus discouraging older workers from continuing to participate in the workforce,'' unless they get a second job to make up for the loss of their retirement, of course. ``Our members and older workers in general care a great detail about these issues.'' That is why we brought this motion to recommit.

Again, time and again the House and Senate have voted to provide these protections for older workers. We would have carried that message to the conference committee, but we were not allowed into those discussions and apparently the conference committee couldn't hear the Members of this House on the bipartisan basis that voted overwhelmingly to provide these protections, both to the airlines and to the older workers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, let me thank my colleague for yielding.

And, Mr. Miller, let me say hello to you and thank you for your loyal opposition. Even though over the last 7 years that we have worked on this project together, much of what is in here you should be very proud of because you and Mr. Andrews, Mr. Thomas, Mr. McKeon, Mr. Johnson, and others, all of us, over the last 6 or 7 years, have spent a lot of time bringing this bill together.

And I am pleased that this bill is on the floor tonight. It could be here in a different form. It could be here in a different way. But the fact is that we have worked together in a bipartisan way to craft a very good bill to protect American workers' pensions.

Simply put, I think these reforms that we have put in place tonight represent the most sweeping changes to America's pension system in 30 years. And they will ensure that workers and retirees can continue to count on their hard-earned retirement benefits. And these reforms, I think, deserve the support of every Member in this House.

Over the past few years, we have seen more and more companies get out of their pension system, freeze their pension plan, go bankrupt, turn it over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and put the pension benefits for American workers in jeopardy. And what we are attempting to do tonight, in a bipartisan way, is to protect the American workers and the benefits that they have earned and try to make sure that the commitments that companies make to their workers are kept. And the way to do that is to make sure that we put more money into these pension funds.

Now, my friend from California, who was down here arguing against this bill, had a two-sided argument. One, the bill is too strong. We are going to require companies to put more money into their pension plans, and as a result, they are going to freeze their plans. Yet on the other hand, he is complaining that we are not protecting the interests of the American worker. Now, we spent years on this, both of us together, and we know the only way you get there is to walk a very fine line, to make sure that promises made to American workers are kept, that plans are better funded, and that we try to prevent a taxpayer bailout of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

As my colleague from California said, 7 years ago, when I was bounced out of the Republican leadership after the 1998 election, I became chairman of the Employer-Employee Relations Subcommittee of the Education and the Workforce Committee, a subcommittee most of you have never heard of. And my ranking member was my good friend from New Jersey, Mr. Andrews, and we began a series of hearings in 1999 to uncover what was happening in the pension system in America today. And we had dozens of hearings and worked hard. And some of the things that we learned, I think we have dealt with very comprehensively in this bill.

The bill ensures that employers better fund their pension plans. It closes loopholes that allow underfunded plans to skip their pension payments. It prohibits employers and union leaders from digging the hole even deeper by promising extra benefits when their plans are severely underfunded. The bill enhances disclosure to give workers and retirees more information about the condition of their own pension fund that they are a member of. It protects taxpayers from a multi-billion dollar bailout of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. It better protects multi-employer pension plans for both workers and the employers who fund them. And it gives access to critical investment advice for those who have 401(K) plans and IRAs.

I want to also mention the last issue, the fact that one of the issues I have worked on for these 7 years and never given up on is trying to get critical investment advice into those who have self- directed plans. My colleague from Massachusetts sits over there with a smile on his face because we worked on this together, although he disagrees with me. He is still my friend. But helping those who have to make decisions in their 401(k) plan or their IRA is critically important if we want to help them get the type of retirement security that they want for themselves. We all know that many of these plans are underfunded.

There is not enough diversification in their portfolios, and if we don't get real investment advice and personalized investment advice into their hands, we know they are not going to have the type of retirement that they are expecting. Thankfully, those provisions are included in this bill to help make sure that investment advice gets there.

Another big issue is bringing legal certainty to those cash balance plans, these hybrid plans. It is not a defined benefit plan; it is not a 401(K). And over 2,000 companies in America today have these hybrid pension plans, and they are in some legal jeopardy. And I think we have struck the right balance in this legislation to protect the interest of older workers that are in defined benefit plans as these conversions take place.

Now, not every Member favors every provision of this bill, as my friend from California pointed out. And if I had to write this bill myself, it would be different than what we see today. The fact is that I think we have made good on our promise to help American workers keep their retirement benefits they have earned, to make sure that those commitments are kept.

I want to thank my friend from California, Chairman Bill Thomas, whom I have worked on this proposal with for the last 5 years. We all know Bill is a sweet, lovable human being. This is his last year as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. And I have got to tell you that all of us in the House, whether we agree with Bill or disagree with Bill every day, Bill is someone who works hard, puts his mind to it, and no one has worked harder in bringing this bill to the floor tonight than my colleague and friend from California, Mr. Thomas.

Also I want to thank Chairman McKeon, the man who took my place as Chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee some 6 months ago, for his hard work.

I want to thank my staff. Stacey Dion, Stacey, everybody that has worked on this knows Stacey. She has been one of the principal authors of this. I want to thank Paula Nowakowski, Jo-Marie St. Martin, Kevin Smith, Mike Sommers, Greg Maurer, Dave Schnittger and George Canty on my staff for all of their work on this bill now and in the past.

I also have to thank some of my former staff on the Education and the Workforce Committee, Ed Gilroy, Steve Forde, Jim Paretti and Steve Perrotta, for all of the work they have done continuing to assist not only me when I was chairman, but Mr. McKeon as well.

Let me also thank the staff from the Ways and Means Committee and our Democrat staff who have worked hard over many years to get us to this point.

This is a very important bill. I think all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle know it is a very important bill.

When we started this process, Mr. Andrews and I in 1999, it wasn't many months into this when we asked ourselves, why haven't these laws been cleaned up and straightened out? Well, Mr. Andrews, I can tell you, I found out why, because it is hard work and there are a lot of people who have a lot of different interests.

But at the end of the day, the work that we started I think is going to pay dividends tonight, because what we have here is a process and a product that has been developed together that will in fact meet the goals that we set out to do. And it wouldn't have happened without the work of a lot of Members on both sides of the aisle.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support this bill, to defeat the motion to recommit, and move this bill to the Senate and on to the President's desk.

Mr. Speaker, let me thank my colleague for yielding.

There is a very delicate balance in this bill. My colleague from California talked about the airline provisions. I am going to talk about one of the most important provisions in this bill, and that is the protection for hybrid plans, or cash balance pension plans.

This was a very difficult issue in the House; it was a very difficult issue in the conference. It has been worked out in a bipartisan way to the satisfaction of those on the farthest on the left in the Senate and the farthest on the right in the House. And to rewrite this provision in a motion to recommit I think is irresponsible.

I would say to my colleagues who have worked on this bipartisan pension bill for a long time, the balance of this bill is right. Let's support the underlying bill and reject the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 966, I call up the bill (H.R. 4) to provide economic security for all Americans, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the title of this bill, as we indicated, is the Pension Protection Act of 2006; but it is much more than that. Within the bill also are tax items, trade items, charitable provisions.

One of the reasons I am pleased to bring this to the floor is that it is in essence the combination of more than 5 months of working on a very important area of public law that affects tens of millions of Americans. It is about the agreement workers have with their employers as to what they are going to be able to earn, not for the time they are working but for the time they are retired.

Our current pension system is, frankly, broken. It moved rapidly into a known broken situation, and we have responded, not as quickly as perhaps we would have liked, but I think we have responded in a way that, as we discussed, this bill I think you will find there is, at least there was on the conference committee and there should be in this House, broad bipartisan support.

For example, on this side of the aisle, I could say I hold a letter from the General Motors Corporation endorsing the changes we are making in pension law. And someone would say, aha. But then I would pick up a letter and say, I hold a letter from the United Auto Workers who are supportive of this pension change. And I could do that for industry after industry showing that you not only have the corporate structure in support but you have the workers in support.

This is a bill that makes fundamental changes in transparency, in payment arrangements, which means the promise made from employers to employees and employees to employers has a greater chance than a long, long time of being honored. It is important legislation. The Ways and Means Committee will spend some time on the text, trade, and charitable provisions, but I want to say that I am very proud of the product that has been produced. It will move off this floor, it will move through the Senate, and it will be signed by the President. And the time line in doing that will save many employees from what would have been a certain failure to have pensions if we did not act before we adjourned for our summer district work period.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It is times like these that you have to resist the temptation of saying, okay, let's just go home and not pass this bill. But the gentleman from Washington, from Seattle, perhaps wouldn't be able to get back if he were flying Northwest Airlines, and so the fervor of his speech not to act would in fact have to bump into reality sooner than I think he might like.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield the remainder of the time to be controlled by the gentleman of Michigan, a fellow conferee on the pension conference (Mr. Camp).

I thank the gentleman very much.

Mr. Speaker, of necessity, this bill, H.R. 4, governing pension rules is very complex. A detailed, plain-English explanation is available from the Joint Committee on Taxation and will be a key resource in understanding the intent underlying the bill's provisions and, therefore, obviously of the legislative intent behind the bill.

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I know some people complained about having only a number of hours to read the bill, but this was just handed to me, and I am tempted to say that perhaps 30 seconds ought to be allowed, because it could have been handed anytime during the debate. But I know you were very busy over there, so you were only able to get it to us at the close of debate. We appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I have in high regard those Members who focus on issues which they are concerned about in the pension bill, and I know that there are a number of sections that people could focus on in terms of their concern about the bill. And I know it is absolutely, totally a coincidence that one Member on this side of the aisle spoke against the bill.

Yet, as I am going through this particular motion to recommit, page after page after page refers to, you got it, the airline provisions. So I am quite sure on the basis of wanting to go through a 1,000-page bill to create a motion to recommit, that the fact that the one area that appears to be a bit sensitive on this side of the aisle is what the motion to recommit is all about.

I guess in that regard I hold in minimum high regard, on something as important as this legislation, to get it on the books as quickly as we can, that this motion to recommit is focused in a way, in my opinion, to advance political interests rather than policy interests.

I guess I am just a little bit bewildered when the gentleman from Ohio, the majority leader, handed me a letter, because as a conferee I received a letter that said we want you in the areas of key concern to be supportive of what we do in this pension bill.

There were two signatures on that letter. One was the majority leader, the gentleman from Ohio. The other one was the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, urging us to make sure key provisions in the pension bill are preserved, because we want to preserve those, and not the whole bill, or in fact send the Senate the whole bill because Senator Kennedy will be supportive of this bill once it is received in the Senate.

The idea that members of the conference don't know what is in it and aren't supportive is absolutely and totally refuted by the signature of the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the majority leader, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are bringing this bill, rather than a final conference report, for one reason and one reason only--to prevent the inclusion of long-overdue provisions to extend important business tax credits that reward things like research and development and efforts to hire low-wage workers. Those credits expired 7 months ago and are now hostage to the Republican quest to pass tax cuts for a tiny number of incredibly wealthy families. That is an outrage.

However much I deplore the process by which this bill was rushed to the floor, and however flawed it may be, it does include some critically important and very time-sensitive provisions, and its worst elements have been significantly improved since the original Bush administration proposal. For that reason, I have decided to vote in favor of this bill.

The bill includes provisions which must be enacted quickly if we hope to save pension benefits for large numbers of workers in the airline industry and in the building trades and other industries with multi- employer pension plans.

Without a provision in this bill which would give airlines more time to fully fund their pension plans, Northwest Airlines has said it will have to terminate its pension plan and turn it over to the Federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. That's a bad outcome for everyone. It's a bad outcome for Northwest employees, because many of them will not receive their full earned pensions if that happens. It's a bad outcome for taxpayers, because we will assume Northwest's debt, even though the company is eager to pay it, given time.

The bill also includes long-overdue reforms to multi-employer pension plan law. These long-overdue reforms will allow multi-employer pension plans to address what for some plans is a short-term funding crisis, and will give all plans flexibility they didn't have before to advance fund and guard against a future crisis. Republican leaders unfairly dropped multi-employer pension plan reform from the pension reform bill that addressed similar problems for single-employer plans several years ago.

This final bill also represents a substantial improvement over the original proposal put forth by the Bush administration, and the bills that passed the House and Senate. Under the improved bill:

Companies will be spared the extreme funding unpredictability proposed by the Bush administration, which advocated forcing companies to respond to every short-term fluctuation in interest rates and workforce composition, without any ``smoothing'' of interest rates at all.

A provision which would have unfairly classified pension plans as ``at risk'' and subject to penalty if the company had a poor credit rating, even if the plan itself was well-funded, has been removed. That provision might have forced companies like General Motors to divert resources from addressing business challenges and into an already well- funded pension plan.

Plans will be allowed to amortize both gains and losses in their pension plans over time, and will be able to use accurate assumptions about early retirement to predict future liabilities so that the plans are properly funded.

The flawed Bush administration proposal to deny all workers plant shutdown benefits was mitigated, though not removed, and the conferees adopted provisions from the Senate bill which we hope will prevent employers from using pension plan underfunding as a tactic to cut retirement benefits negotiated in collective bargaining.

Despite my decision to support the bill and address immediate needs, I must admit I continue to have deep reservations about this bill's long-term impact on our defined benefit pension system, which provides guaranteed retirement income for millions of Americans. Knowing how committed President Bush and his allies in the House are to Social Security privatization increases my concerns, especially given the way this bill came to the House floor.

The final bill includes fundamental changes to the way companies determine their contributions to pension plans. The new ``yield curve'' methodology proposed by the Bush administration is completely untested, and is likely to make required pension obligations much more unpredictable. Many companies have suggested that this new unpredictability may be the final straw that leads them to terminate their guaranteed pension plans.

The final bill includes a requirement that companies subtract credit balances they earned by making advance pension contributions before calculating their plan funding level, a change which will provide a strong disincentive to advance fund, since advance contributions will be treated as if they don't exist in the future. Advance funding is critical if companies are to balance the need to fully fund retirement benefits with the need to direct resources to current operations in difficult times.

The final bill included provisions which may make workers pay the price when companies don't fund their pensions, including provisions

which restrict benefits for workers when plants shut down and a dangerous provision which would allow deeply underfunded multiemployer pension plans to cut benefits that workers have already earned. The bill also misses a real opportunity to enact better protections for workers whose companies declare bankruptcy and terminate their pension plans.

I regret that this bill was not crafted in a Congress that genuinely believed in guaranteed retirement benefits and preserving them for the future. There is much bad with the good, and much of the effort that went into this bill was directed toward mitigating problems with the original bill, rather than addressing real problems with retirement security. I hope that in the next Congress, we will be in a position to pass legislation that will strengthen retirement security for all workers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4, the Pension Protection Act, and I ask my colleagues to join me in doing the same. We followed a long road to get to this point, and there have been many bumps along the way. But when you are considering such substantial legislation, such fundamental reforms, especially in a bill where we haven't had reforms like this for over 20 years, that is to be expected.

At the end of the day, however, what we have brought to the floor tonight represents the reform package agreed upon by House and Senate pension conference principals after many, many meetings. After a long and sometimes difficult process, this bill provides us just what we were looking for at the outset: Reforms that significantly strengthen outdated worker pension laws for workers, retirees, and taxpayers. And that is a major and a long, overdue victory.

In the fall of 2004, nearly 2 years ago, the House Education Workforce Committee, led by then-Chairman Boehner, unveiled six principles to fix our Nation's outdated pension laws. These pillars represented the foundation for the defined benefit pension overhaul Congress was about to embark upon, and our committee pledged to incorporate them into the final legislative product we would send to President Bush. Mr. Speaker, the Pension Protection Act meets that pledge.

We pledged to craft a bill that provides certainty by establishing a permanent interest rate to more accurately calculate employers' pension liabilities so they fund their pension promises. We have done just that.

We pledged to craft a bill that relies on common sense by enabling employers to build a cushion in their pension plans during good economic times. And we have done just that.

We pledged to craft a bill that establishes stability by enclosing funding loopholes and ensuring employers make adequate and consistent cash payments to their plans. And we have done just that.

We pledged to craft a bill that promises greater transparency by giving employees timely and straightforward information about the health of their plans. And we have done just that.

We pledged to craft a bill that values honesty by ending the practice of allowing employers and union leaders, when faced with a severely underfunded pension plan, to dig their hole even deeper by promising extra benefits to employees and retirees. And we have done just that.

And, finally, we pledged to craft a bill that enhances retirement security portability by ensuring that hybrid plans, such as cash balance pensions, which offer portable, more generous worker benefits, remain a viable part of the defined benefits system. And we have done just that.

In short, this bill will reform broken pension rules that no longer serve the interests of workers who count on their retirement savings being there for them when they need it. I am proud to have played a role in crafting it, and I thank Chairman Thomas, my neighbor from California, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and, in particular, my former chairman, Leader Boehner, for leading the charge on this important issue. Going all the way back to his days as Employer-Employee Relations Subcommittee Chair,

our majority leader has been a tireless advocate for the reforms we are considering tonight, and I thank him for his commitment.

I also want to thank my committee staff for their work on this legislation. Ed Gilroy, Jim Paretti, Steve Perrotta, and Mr. Boehner's pension policy adviser, Stacey Dion. They have been truly remarkable throughout this process, putting in innumerable hours, and we literally would not be here tonight without them.

Mr. Speaker, I urge swift passage of H.R. 4, both here in the House this evening and in the Senate next week.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 3 minutes to a member of the committee, a member of the conference committee, and thank him for his work on this bill, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Thomas.

I am happy to yield 3 minutes to a subcommittee chairman of the Education Committee, a member of the conference committee, a good friend of mine from Texas, a hero of this country, Mr. Sam Johnson.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia, a member of the committee, for purposes of a unanimous consent request.

(Mr. PRICE of Georgia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

At this time I would like to yield to my good friend from across the aisle, the ranking member of the Transportation Committee, Mr. Oberstar, for 2 minutes.

May I inquire how much time remains.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield at this time 2\1/2\ minutes to a member of the committee, Mr. Ehlers from Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to yield the balance of my time to our majority leader, who started this project as a subcommittee chairman and then full committee chairman of the Education Committee, Mr. Boehner from Ohio.