A coalition of labor, retirement and consumer protection organizations urged congressional leaders to reject any attempts to block the Labor Department's proposed Retirement Security Rule through the appropriations process.
The Save our Retirement Coalition — made up of nine organizations, including AARP, AFL-CIO, Better Markets and Pension Rights Center — specifically asked that Congress reject any appropriations riders aimed at prohibiting the use of funds for finalizing, implementing or enforcing the Labor Department's proposed rule in a letter dated Feb. 15, sent to Senate and House leadership, as well as Appropriations Committee leaders. A rider is a nongermane amendment to a bill that changes the law governing a program funded by that bill, according to the Senate glossary.
Congress has yet to pass its annual appropriations legislation, and its most recent stopgap funding bill, passed in mid-January, extends the deadlines for one set of appropriations bills to March 1, and another set to March 8.
The Labor Department's Retirement Security Rule, commonly known as the fiduciary rule, has faced significant pushback since it was proposed in October. The rule would amend the process used to determine when a financial professional is considered an investment advice fiduciary under ERISA, changing three prongs of its five-part test. The changes would pull one-time advice, such as rollovers or annuity purchases, under the definition of a fiduciary if the other parts of the test are met.
"Regulatory loopholes allow some financial advisers to recommend their clients invest their retirement savings in products simply because the adviser will get higher fees and commissions for doing so," the coalition wrote in its letter.
The new DOL rule "closes these loopholes by requiring financial professionals providing advice to retirement savers put their clients' best interests before their own," the coalition added. "The financial industry should be focused on providing financial advice in their customers' best interest, not trying to influence Congress to defeat a rule that would require just that."
