The House Education and Labor Committee may hold hearings in March
on a technical corrections bill, while the Senate Finance Committee
may consider such a bill in the Spring, aides told BNA Feb. 28.
“While only tentative, we're looking at holding hearings in
the next month or so to address technical corrections to the Pension
Protection Act (Pub. L. No. 109-280),” Aaron K. Albright, press
secretary for the committee, told BNA.
Also on Feb. 28, an aide to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max
Baucus (D-Mont.), confirmed that the committee's staff was currently
working on technical corrections to the PPA and that a bill is
expected to be filed this spring.
Asked whether the anticipated legislation, to amend nonsubstantive
errors in the PPA, would include additional pension-related
provisions, Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), ranking member of the
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee told BNA Feb.
27, “Technical corrections can't have new provisions.” He
also said it was too early to tell whether the technical corrections
bill would be accompanied by separate, pension-related legislation, or
when either could be expected.
“The way I work these bills is to talk to all the people who
are involved--that's thousands--about pensions, and we are doing that.
We're having stakeholders' meetings.” He added, “I've had
staff people, who have never quit working on pensions” since PPA
was enacted on Aug. 17, 2006.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told BNA he remained interested in
ensuring that promised airline-related corrections occur. “I
know of no specific timeframe although I know that sooner is better
because of the disadvantage that some Texas-based airlines were placed
under as a result of the earlier pensions bill that this correction
would remedy. But I don't know about any particular
deadlines.”
The PPA allowed some airlines to spread their pension funding over
an additional 17 years and under more stable, long-range terms, but
Sens. Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) complained the bill
favored certain airlines--in the way it treated amortization periods
and interest rates--over others in similar underfunded situations. At
issue was how much the legislation extended the seven-year
implementation period required under the PPA's stricter funding rules
for airlines that have placed a so-called “hard freeze” on
their pension plans, versus those whose plans were put in a
“soft freeze” status.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc. and Minneapolis/St. Paul-based
Northwest Airlines, were operating in bankruptcy at the time the PPA
was passed, Hutchison noted, while Texas-based American Airlines and
Continental Airlines are not. The Texas senators charged that airline
relief provisions in the bill gave Delta and Northwest (hard freeze)
an unjust competitive advantage with a total of 17 years over American
and Continental (soft freeze) that will only have 10 years to amortize
their underfunded liabilities.
By Sheila R. Cherry