Airline Worker Rollover

Floor Speech

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I would like that thank Chairman Baucus for his continuing work in helping me address an issue important to airline workers whose employers went bankrupt after September 11, 2001.

I first started working on this issue in 2007 when I introduced legislation to allow employees of bankrupt commercial airlines to roll their bankruptcy payments into individual retirement accounts to provide for a retirement savings option to those airline workers whose defined benefit plans were terminated or frozen in bankruptcy proceedings.

My legislation attracted bipartisan support from my colleagues, and in 2008, The Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act, WRERA, was enacted into law, and we worked together to include a provision to allow airline workers to rollover bankruptcy payments into a Roth IRA only. While this was an important step, it is also important to take the next step and allow workers the additional option to rollover bankruptcy payments into a traditional IRA--an option typically available for everyone when deciding which retirement vehicle is right for them.

With the assistance of the distinguished chairman, we began the process of taking that next step during the 111th Congress. In May 2010, Chairmen BAUCUS and LEVIN included the Airline Worker Relief provision with H.R. 4213, the 2010 Jobs Act legislation which extended several expiring tax provisions and provided for technical corrections to pension funding legislation, and the House of Representatives passed the Jobs Act on May 28, 2010.

On June 16 of this year, Chairman Baucus also included the airline worker rollover provision when he introduced his substitute amendment to H.R. 4213. However, on June 18, the pension funding relief section of H.R. 4213, absent the airline worker rollover provision, was included in H.R. 3962, the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010. The airline worker rollover provision was not included because unlike the other pension funding relief items that raised revenue, the rollover provision has a modest budgetary cost. Regrettably, the Senate has not since had the opportunity to consider the Rollover provision.

Today Chairman Baucus is proposing a substitute amendment to make corrections to the pension funding relief provisions that were enacted as part of the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010. These items are scored to have no revenue effect; so once again, the airline worker rollover provision will not be included. I will not object to this amendment, but at the same time, it is important for the record to clarify our intent to move the airline worker rollover provision on the next available and appropriate legislative vehicle.

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