Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

It was 3 or 4 years ago that I spoke to a big delegation of people who were mostly from the Central States Teamsters, and they were very much lobbying for a solution to this problem. They treated me like a hero because at that time we were probably in the middle of a Government Accountability Office investigation of the mismanagement of these funds. We thought we were going to get a GAO report that would show the mismanagement, reap the benefits of that mismanagement, and recoup a lot of funds. Quite frankly, that Government Accountability Office study of about 2 years didn't prove what I thought and what the Central States Teamsters people thought was wrong. We still think the mismanagement was there, but if you don't have an authority like the Government Accountability Office to justify that, it doesn't give you much of a leg to follow up on.

Now we have the Butch Lewis Act for which Senator Brown is asking unanimous consent. We also have other proposals that the Senate Committee on Finance, which I chair, has been working on--and not only under my chairmanship. The biggest part of this work was probably done when Senator Hatch was still the chairman of the committee.

I also want to give people the reasons I have asked to reserve the right to object.

The Butch Lewis Act doesn't provide long-term solvency to the Central States' plan or to other critical and declining multiemployer pension plans. It is a costly and incomplete attempt to fix the multiemployer system.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, many plans that would be eligible for loans under this legislation couldn't pay these loans back, and most of the plans taking the loans would become insolvent even if they were able to pay back the loans. The bill acknowledges this failing by providing for direct Federal assistance for plans that go insolvent even after they receive loans.

Most critically, the Butch Lewis Act makes no reforms to the system in order to secure its long-term solvency. That is not the way we ought to be working to help retirees.

In getting back to the work of the Committee on Finance, since last year, both under Senator Hatch's leadership and mine, the committee has been working on a bipartisan basis to address the issues facing the multiemployer system. I emphasize the necessity of bipartisanship in the U.S. Senate. When you have a division of 53 to 47 and you have to have 60 votes to get something done in this body, bipartisanship is very, very important.

The committee is nearing its completion of a comprehensive proposal that will include financial assistance to the critical and declining multiemployer pension plans and provide long-term solvency to these plans and to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. That proposal will include financial relief for plans like Central States' and for the coal miners.

The Butch Lewis Act is so costly and does nothing to fix the flaws in the system that has brought about this bill. In relationship to the Government Accountability Office, I spoke to some of those flaws that I initiated a few years ago. There is really nothing in the proposal on which Senator Brown is asking for a UC that addresses the mismanagement of the trustees. Our comprehensive plan includes reforms to address trustee requirements and plan operations. In other words, the people in the private sector who are managing this ought to have some responsibility of making sure they are doing it in a fiscally sound way and are carrying out the rights of the trustees.

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