U.S. Senators Joe Donnelly and Todd Young led a bipartisan group of Senators in sending a letter to the co-chairs of the Joint Select Committee on the Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans encouraging members to now reach a bipartisan agreement that provides legislative recommendations to Congress this year on the pending pension crisis. The Joint Select Committee, chaired by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), was created as part of the overall budget compromise enacted in February 2018. The committee was required to hold at least five public meetings and is tasked with crafting recommendations and a legislative solution by the end of November. If the Committee can reach agreement, then that proposal will be guaranteed an expedited vote in Congress.
A press release stated, “Without congressional action, the nearly 195 multiemployer pension plans listed by the U.S. Department of Labor as in critical or endangered status could fail, potentially leading to the collapse of the federal pension insurance program, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). This would impact thousands of Hoosier Teamsters and mineworkers, among others, who earned their pensions over decades of work”.
Joining Donnelly and Young on the letter were Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), John Hoeven (R-ND), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Gary Peters (D-MI), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).