The House Education and Labor Committee will vote June 11 on bipartisan multiemployer pension reform legislation, the panel announced Friday.
The bill introduced by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., in January has 168 co-sponsors, including eight Republicans, and is expected to be approved by the committee.
The bill, H.R. 397, also known as the Butch Lewis Act, would establish the Pension Rehabilitation Administration and a related trust fund within the Treasury Department to make loans to multiemployer plans in critical and declining status that are approved by Treasury to reduce benefits, or to plans that are already insolvent but not terminated. Treasury would issue bonds to finance the loan program.
Sponsors of such plans could also apply for financial assistance from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which would gain more funding to provide it, if the bill clears Congress.
