“The problems facing our multiemployer pension system are multifaceted and over the years have proven to be incredibly difficult to address. Despite these challenges and a highly-charged political environment, we have made meaningful progress toward a bipartisan proposal to address the shortcomings in the system to improve retirement security for workers and retirees while also providing certainty for small businesses that participate in multiemployer plans.

“We understand that the longer that these problems persist, the more burdensome and expensive for taxpayers they become to address, and we are committed to working toward a final agreement as quickly as possible,” according to the statement from Hatch and Brown.

Over the past six months, the Committee held five hearings with union pension stakeholders and worked with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. and the Congressional Budget Office to flesh out a workable solution.

But the enormity of the Committee's core task—to craft a bipartisan solution—was underscored early. House minority leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, was reported as insisting on no pension cuts for participants in plans that require taxpayer assistance.

Prior to its first hearing, Democrats on the Committee allegedly held a strategy call insisting on a solution based on the Butch Lewis Act, legislation introduced in the Senate this year by Brown that would channel loans to imminently insolvent plans without cutting any scheduled pension payments.

That raised skepticism from Sen. Rob Portman, R-OH, a member of the Committee who came to be regarded as an ally to Teamster and other union pensioners leading a grassroots movement for a solution.

“We have made important progress towards reaching an agreement to help resolve this multiemployer pension crisis and these efforts must continue until we complete our work,” said Sen. Portman in a separate statement.

“Without action, the multiemployer pension system will collapse, leaving many Ohio workers and retirees impoverished and forcing many employers to go bankrupt.  That's an unacceptable outcome, and I will continue to work with my bipartisan colleagues until we solve this pension crisis once and for all,” added Portman.

The heart of the problem

The question of whether cuts to pensions should be part of a solution, or whether a rescue package should be funded solely through the Treasury Department, is at the heart of the debate with which lawmakers from both parties are wrestling.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-NC, chair of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, and Rep. Phil Roe, R-TN—both members of the Joint Select Committee—are considered stanch fiscal conservatives and advocates of limited government.

A draft proposal of legislation released by the Joint Select Committee last week included two options that would cut scheduled pensions to plans that require government assistance up to 20 percent.

The floating of those options implied that at least some Democrats on the Committee had moved off their initial insistence that a rescue package be based off the Butch Lewis Act.

Over the course of negotiations, sources speaking on background told BenefitsPRO that some Republican members of the committee were angling for an extension of the November 30 deadline to the end of this calendar year, indicating just how close the Committee is to a compromise.

In their statement, Hatch and Brown did not indicate if the Committee's work would be extended throughout the remainder of the 115th Congress' lame duck session.

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