National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia, Senator Casey, Senator Brown, and Senator Manchin. They have been relentless in putting this issue of justice for the miners in front of the Finance Committee.

Week after week, month after month, they have been saying: When is this going to get done? When is the Congress--particularly the Senate-- going to step up and meet the needs that these workers richly deserve to have addressed? We have had this documented again and again. I heard Senator Casey talk about it--how difficult this work is. We have had that put in front of the Senate Finance Committee. Yet there has been no action.

Senator Warner is right--my home State of Oregon does not mine coal. We do have a lot of communities with economies that over the years have been driven by natural resources. They have been up and down the boom- and-bust roller coaster. A lot of those communities are experiencing the very same kind of economic pain you see in the mining towns Senator Casey and our colleagues represent.

You don't turn your backs on workers and retirees in these struggling communities, these struggling mining towns, just because the times are tough. These workers have earned their pensions. They have earned their health care benefits. But the fact is, if Congress does not act soon, all of this could be taken away.

There is a broader crisis in multi-employer pensions that I have talked about on the floor and in the Finance Committee. Part of this crisis goes back to a bad law that passed, over my opposition, in 2014. It gave a green light to slashing benefits for retirees and multi- employer pension plans. It said that it was OK to go back on the deal companies made with their workers and to take away benefits--benefits people had earned through years of hard work. So there are a lot of seniors now walking an economic tightrope every day, and this law threatens to make their lives even harder.

Now you have the mine workers' pensions--the pensions Senator Casey and colleagues have been talking about--in such immediate danger, there is enormous financial pressure being put on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. That is because the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is an economic backstop for millions of retirees. It insures the pensions belonging to mine workers and more than 40 million Americans. But the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is in danger of insolvency if the Congress doesn't step up and find a solution for the troubles facing multi-employer pension plans. And fixing the mine workers' pension plan is a critical component of any solution for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's insurance program. If you don't come up with a solution there, you are going to put in place a prescription for trouble for generations of retired workers across the country.

Senator Manchin has worked strenuously for this cause, reaching across the aisle to Senator Capito. I mentioned my colleagues on the Finance Committee. There is now a bipartisan proposal ready to go to protect retired mine workers' health benefits and bolster their pension plan. It would stave off the threat of financial ruin for more than 100,000 workers and their families and would help safeguard the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation and the millions of Americans who count on it to insure their livelihoods. We understand that if you want to do something important in the Senate, it has to be bipartisan, so we have reached out to the majority to find a way to advance this proposal.

The mine workers are not facing some imaginary policy deadline. Their livelihoods are on the line. Their health care is on the line. The economic security of entire communities is on the line. So it is time for the Congress to step up.

I again thank my colleagues.

I wish to note that I have some additional remarks to make, and I am going to wait to give those remarks because I understand Senator Heitkamp, Senator Donnelly, and Senator Coats are going to go beforehand. I see our friend from North Dakota on her feet.

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