George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Since the beginning of this year, we have witnessed numerous accidents in our Nation's underground mines. So far this year, 26 underground coal miners have died, more than the total for all of last year. Preliminary investigative reports and public hearings have made it clear that prompt action is necessary if we are to avoid a continued loss of life and disruptions to a vital American energy source. For many months, I have been urging the Committee on Education and the Workforce to take action on this matter by marking up the legislation introduced by the West Virginia delegation. Sadly, that has not occurred. While the Senate is making progress on this matter in a bipartisan manner, the responsible leaders in this body have declined to treat this matter with the seriousness it deserves. The Administration, which helped create the problem by withdrawing regulatory initiatives that could have saved lives and moving enforcement resources into compliance assistance, is likewise lacking in purpose and direction in addressing this crisis. Accordingly, today I rise to introduce new mine safety legislation, together with Congressman Rahall of West Virginia, Congressman Owens of New York, Congressman Chandler of Kentucky, Congressman Holt of New Jersey, Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, and Congressman Mollohan of West Virginia. This legislation does not detract in any way from our continued pleas to this body to move forward with the West Virginia bill. It does, however, include refinements and new provisions based upon what we have learned since that bill was introduced. An identical bill is being introduced in the Senate by Senators Kennedy, Rockefeller, Murray and Durbin, and we understand the refinements and new provisions reflected in this legislation are under active discussion in the responsible Senate committee. We hope that these new ideas will advance the discussion and lead to prompt action by this body. We will not let up on this, nor will we let complacency take root. Following is a detailed section-by-section discussion of the new bill, entitled the ``Protecting America's Miners Act.'' I encourage all of my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation, and in demanding action by this body before new tragedies strike. Summary of Protecting America's Mineral Act (1) Short Title. ``Protecting America's Miners Act''. (2) Sense of Congress. This legislation is necessary because of the failure by the current Administration to protect miners and properly prepare for the future. (3) Definitions. Relevant definitions from the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 are incorporated into this free- standing legislation. (4) Improved escape and refuge requirements to help protect miners in the event of an emergency. This section would establish improved safety standards to help underground coal miners survive an underground emergency. Highlights include-- Requiring atmospheric detection and warning systems to alert miners to dangerous levels of harmful and explosive gases; Requiring two-way messaging systems to communicate between miners and the surface once they are available; in the interim, one-way messaging systems and backup telephone lines would be required; Requiring caches of self-rescuers for escape, and, until such time as the mine has established underground refuges, also requiring special caches to support prolonged stays underground; Requiring underground refuges, meeting criteria based on past experience in the U.S. and abroad, to protect miners unable to escape from a mine; and Requiring miners to be equipped with tracking devices to facilitate rescue. The bill authorizes MSHA to revise these standards by regulation in order to improve them over time. This is the approach taken in 1977 when the current Mine Act was established. Similarly, MSHA is authorized to issue modifications of these standards for individual mines as with any safety standard under the requirements of existing law. Additional research on related topics is required by section 11 of the bill. Because of the nature of these requirements, the bill would make any violation of them an ``imminent danger'' so that MSHA can act promptly to ensure mines are in compliance. Section 5--Facilitating the prompt initiation of rescue and mine recovery efforts The bill would set up an Emergency Call Center to be sure MSHA is ready to receive information on emergencies--so callers don't find themselves going from answering machine to answering machine. The Call Center would have to be supplied by the Secretary with home and emergency numbers for key agency personnel, local emergency services, mine rescue teams, and others. The bill would require that operators notify MSHA within 15 minutes of any emergency or serious incident. The bill ensures MSHA gets prompt notice of close calls, not just situations in which there are deaths or serious injuries. The bill would separate mines into two categories for purposes of what mine rescue team requirements are applicable: Those mines with less than 36 employees can contract out for mine rescue services to the nearest mines which maintain such teams, provided that: (1) the mine must include some of its own employees in the rescue team; (2) all rescue team members must be able to reach the mine within 1 hour; and (3) the operator must hold at least two rescue drills a year to ensure the team becomes familiar with the mine. Those mines with 36 or more employees must have their own mine rescue teams (although they could contract for additional teams). These mines must also hold at least two rescue drills a year. The bill would also require the Secretary to promptly initiate an expedited rulemaking to revise existing mine rescue team requirements, and to consult broadly with existing mine rescue teams, other rescue organizations, local and State emergency authorities and others in this regard. The rules would cover training and qualifications for rescue team members, the equipment and technology used in rescue, the structure and organization of mine rescue teams, and other factors which have been identified by mine rescue team members at recent public hearings as posing problems during recent rescue efforts. Section 11 of the bill contains related research requirements. Section 6--Enhancing the investigation of mine accidents This section directs the Secretary of Labor to issue regulations on an expedited basis concerning the investigation of mine accidents. No such regulations currently exist, and so each investigation is ad hoc. The Secretary is directed to consult widely in developing these regulations--including directly contacting family members who can be identified of any miner who perished in a mining accident of any type in the last 10 years. Miner families are authorized to be involved in all aspects of the investigation, and an advocate is to be appointed to facilitate their participation. The regulations are to require public hearings be held in connection with any fatal accident or any accident which could have resulted in multiple fatalities. This section would also authorize a majority of the families of any miners killed in an accident, or an authorized miner representative, to request that an additional investigation be conducted by the Chemical Safety Board or other appropriate federal agency. This would permit a more independent review of major accidents in which MSHA's own conduct may be an issue. Section 7--Enhancing operator and owner incentives to avoid serious risks to miners The bill would direct the Secretary to revise the regulations which layout the process for citing operators who engage in a ``pattern of violations.'' Such a penalty has never been assessed by MSHA despite the number of scoff-laws that have been identified. The changes required by the legislation would ensure that MSHA is required to make decisions on these situations in a timely way, and the Secretary is authorized to withdraw miners from the entire mine until a pattern of violations is corrected. The bill would also significantly increase the penalties for a ``pattern of violations'' up to $1 million, and bar the Review Commission from reducing such penalties. The bill also takes strong action to ensure operators pay their assessed penalties. The bill would forbid operators from contesting citations unless the assessed penalties are placed in escrow, and it would add criminal penalties for failure to pay. The bill would also establish a minimum penalty of $500 and a maximum penalty of $250,000 for other violations. However, if the Secretary determines that the violation could have significantly and substantially contributed to a hazard, the bill would establish the minimum penalty as $1000 and the maximum penalty as $500,000. In addition, the bill establishes a penalty of between $60,000 and $100,000 for the failure to provide timely notification of accidents. The bill eliminates the requirement of current law that the size of the mine and the impact on an operator's ability to continue in business must be considered in assessing penalties. Section 8--Enhancing the willingness of miners and others to report serious problems before accidents occur This would establish a Miner Ombudsman in the Office of the Inspector General in DOL to take safety and health complaints from miners. The purpose of this provision is to help assure miners that their identities will not be compromised if they report mine safety and health problems to the Department. Section 9--Enhancing specific protections for underground coal mines This section would require the Secretary to expeditiously revise three existing standards to enhance the protection of underground coal miners. (a) Conveyor belts and ventilation (``belt-air'' rule). The belts that carry coal out of a mine can ignite a fire or explosion due to friction. The legislation requires MSHA to expeditiously revise its regulations to adopt long-standing recommendations of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health that conveyor belts be designed to minimize flammability. Until the revised rules go into effect, the legislation suspends rules adopted in 2004 that generally permitted increased airflow over these conveyor belts. During this time, MSHA would, however, be permitted to return to its pre-2004 practice of permitting such additional airflow on a mine by mine basis following a public hearing on a request for such a modification. (b) Seals. Seals are walls constructed in underground coal mines to enclose abandoned areas that they do not want to ventilate. Sealed areas can become highly explosive due to methane gas, and hence the seals have to meet prescribed standards. The bill would require MSHA to expeditiously adopt more protective standards. In addition to requiring seals to withstand more pressure than under the current rules, the Secretary is directed to consider whether it should inspect all seals during construction to be sure they are built according to plan. In addition to requiring an improved standard, the bill would require the Secretary to promptly conduct a special inspection of all current seals in underground coal mines composed on non-traditional materials to ensure they are properly constructed. (c) Respirable (coal) dust. Black lung continues to be diagnosed among younger coal miners. To eliminate this disease forever, the bill requires the Secretary to expeditiously revise the current standard to reduce the allowable level of respirable dust to that recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Consistent with other findings by NIOSH, the bill would eliminate the current requirement that several samples be averaged before a citation can be issued, and requires compliance samples to be taken by the Secretary or by placing personal dust monitors on at least 3 miners per shift. Section 10--Transition to a new generation of inspectors It takes 18 months to train a new inspector; and government personnel ceilings and retirement rules mean there may be a critical gap in mine safety and health inspectors over the next few years even if there is money appropriated in sufficient quantities to take on new staff. The bill provides that for a 5-year period, MSHA inspector staffing is exempted from personnel ceilings (only funding governs) and from certain pension reductions that make it difficult to use retired inspectors as necessary to fill the gap. An additional problem for MSHA is to simultaneously provide both enforcement and compliance assistance, particularly for small mine operators. The bill would provide that for a 5- year period, government resources be used exclusively for enforcement, while compliance assistance to the industry be funded exclusively through a user fee. The user fee would be $100 for every penalty assessed on any mine operator. This money would be used exclusively to provide the industry with technical support and advice, and priority would be given to requests for small mines (those with less than 20 miners). Because of the unusual nature of these provisions, special monitoring by the Congress is appropriate, and an annual report would be required each of the five years that these requirements would be in effect. Section 11--Technology research priorities The legislation requires that in implementing its research activities in the next five years, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health give due consideration to new technologies, and existing technologies that could be adopted for use in underground mines, which could facilitate the survival of miners in an emergency. The bill notes that such technologies include, but are not limited to: Longer lasting self-rescuers; Two-way communication devices; Improved battery capacity and specifications to handle multiple devices; Improved technology to determine underground conditions during an emergency situation; and Improved technology for mine rescue crews.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Energy, DOE, recently announced that it will no longer reimburse its contractors for the cost of providing defined benefit pensions for new employees. Beginning in March 2007, contractors will only be reimbursed for defined contribution, 401 (k)-type plans. Furthermore, DOE will only reimburse for a ``market-based medical benefit plan,'' thus encouraging contractors who provide comprehensive medical coverage for their employees to drop or reduce that coverage. In short, the DOE's action is a direct threat to workers' retirement and health care security. That is why I rise today to introduce legislation to put an immediate halt to this policy. At a time when even well-funded companies are choosing to terminate their pension plans and Congress is struggling to find ways to encourage employers to provide meaningful health and retirement benefits to workers, penalizing federal contractors for offering guaranteed retirement benefits and quality health insurance is hypocritical and counterproductive. This bill, ``the Department of Energy Contractor Employee Equitable Treatment Act of 2006,'' will simply prevent DOE from using its funds to implement this wrong-headed proposal. According to a Department press release, the purpose of the new policy is ``based on sound business practices and market-based benchmarks for cost management.'' However, at a speech at the National Press Club in January of last year, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao claimed that ``President Bush has made retirement security one of the highest priorities of his second term. A critical component of his agenda is ensuring that the defined benefit pension system is viable and that the promises made to the workers enrolled in these plans are kept.'' This new DOE policy, particularly after the President's effort to privatize Social Security, contradicts that statement and reveals a true agenda of undermining guaranteed retirement benefits. The DOE rationale--that defined benefit pension plans are too volatile--is particularly ironic given the pressure the Bush Administration is pushing for a House-Senate pension conference bill to change pension law in ways that will make the cost of a pension plan higher and less predictable. Moreover, by tying reimbursement to a ``market based medical benefit plan,'' the DOE encourages contractors who provide comprehensive medical coverage to reduce such coverage and to further shift health care cost burdens onto employees, rather than addressing rising health care costs. The DOE directive requires all contractors to make clear that they can ``unilaterally change, suspend, or terminate any medical plan, coverage or contribution at any time.'' It further limits the conditions under which retirees may receive retiree health benefit coverage. Encouraging the loss or reduction of health benefits of any workers or retirees, including workers and retirees serving our country at nuclear facilities, is just plain wrong. I encourage my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take her place since she is not here.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to talk about a serious issue facing America's seniors, an issue that was just debated prior on the floor, the upcoming deadline for enrolling in the new Medicare prescription drug program. I, like many of my colleagues, have held forums around our congressional districts to try and encourage the senior citizens to enroll in the program and to try and help explain it with the help of advisers from Medicare, from the Kaiser health care organization in my district, from the county health care offices and many others to explain the process of enrolling, the benefits, and what the seniors need to get together to do that. But the problem is that time is going to run out on many of these seniors. There is just 5 days left to enroll in the program or face the possibility of a lifetime penalty. Most seniors do not fully understand the nature of that penalty, that that penalty will be assessed on the value of the average premium paid, and it will be assessed for the rest of the time that the senior is enrolled in the program. It is a serious and a harsh penalty for those who may not be able to sign up, because they simply failed to understand the program and need additional time. We have been pressing the Congress and the President and the Republicans in this House to extend the enrollment deadline and to waive the penalty for the first year to give people enough time to understand the confusing and complicated program. Instead the Republicans have brought up this resolution that was just passed here that encourages the beneficiaries not yet enrolled to enroll in the drug plan and to review carefully all of the options available to them. Many have been trying to do that and have not been able to do it successfully to completion. I do not believe that they should be punished for that. We are talking about individuals who in many cases have other disabilities, other problems, health care problems, and it is not easy to wade through these options that confuse many of them. This resolution does not do anything to help those individuals avoid the lifetime penalties. It does not give the Federal Government the power to negotiate in bulk for the drug companies and for lower prescription prices. Instead of passing this resolution, I would have hoped that the Republicans would have brought forth a provision to provide real help to the beneficiaries by giving them more time to review carefully all of the options that are available and delaying the deadline until May 31. Why, you ask, is this necessary? On April 26, USA Today reported less than 3 weeks remain for most Medicare beneficiaries to sign up for the prescription drug coverage without penalties, but nearly half the Nation's seniors do not know it. The fact is that many beneficiaries are still unaware of the deadlines and the penalties, highlighting the fact that more time is needed. But even those who know about the deadlines and penalties are having a hard time with this confusing law. A new GAO report found that many beneficiaries are receiving inadequate, incorrect information from the Medicare hotline that many of us have been encouraging them to call to help them enroll. It has been inadequate help to them and seniors should not be punished for that reason. The Wall Street Journal reported just a couple of days ago that the Federal investigators from the GAO posing as senior citizens found that the Medicare operators routinely failed to give callers accurate and complete information about the government's new drug benefit. Investigators said that about one-third of their calls resulted in faulty responses or no response at all because of disconnected calls. This is not an atmosphere which should lead to the punishment of senior citizens who are making a good-faith effort to reach Medicare, to reach for the enrollment, to understand the program and make the decision for themselves or a member of their families on a timely basis. Based upon a new analysis, there are probably about nine million beneficiaries with little or no drug coverage who still have failed to sign up. According to the nonpartisan CBO, delaying the deadline to December 31 would save more than 7 million beneficiaries from a lifetime of higher monthly premiums. If the Republicans were truly interested in fulfilling the program that they designed, then they ought to extend the deadline so that senior citizens that we represent can have an opportunity to enroll and put off that penalty. So I would hope--there is still time between now and the 15th, I would hope that now that they have passed this resolution, we would bring out legislation to provide an extension of time for seniors who are in fact acting in good faith. The suggestion has not been made that seniors are trying to dodge the obligation. We know why there is a penalty. Eventually you want them all to sign up so people do not selectively enroll and cherry-pick and make the program more complex. But the indication is not that seniors are refusing or trying to dodge the program. The indication is that many are still reaching out in good faith to sign up for the program and to understand the program, but they just have not been successfully able to do that. It seems to me that is not what a government should be doing is punishing people going through the process in good faith, but simply have not been able to negotiate it.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, in late 1996, a rider was included in the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization that erodes the rights of American workers. Without even holding hearings on the matter, a single company was able to insert language in a conference report to make it harder for its workers to exercise their right to organize. Specifically, Federal Express wanted to prevent its truckers in Pennsylvania from organizing. This goes beyond any special interest giveaway, to a major erosion of collective bargaining rights. Congress passed a specific provision in an airways bill to prevent a specific unit of truckers from organizing. The right to organize, to freely associate, is a fundamental, internationally recognized human right. There is an assault on the working class in this country; one that aims to curtail the right to collectively bargain whenever possible. This rider was one such blow to workers. Prior to the passage of that amendment, truckers at Federal Express were allowed to organize under the rules of the National Labor Relations Act NLRA, and the airline component of the company was covered by the Railway Labor Act RLA. The main difference between the guidelines under these different laws is that the NLRA allows workers to organize in local bargaining units. The RLA, however, would require that the bargaining unit be nationwide, making it much more difficult for workers to communicate with each other enough to form a union. The bill I introduce today modifies the ``express carrier'' language in the RLA so that there is consistency in the industry. Specifically, this bill provides that only the employees of an express carrier involved with the aircraft--the airman, aircraft maintenance technicians and airline dispatchers--would have to comply with the RLA. It would be consistent to allow those workers who are directly involved with the air cargo operation of such a company to be treated like their counterparts in the air carrier business. The remaining and likely larger portion of the workforce in such a company would then fall under the jurisdiction of the NLRA with their peers in the rest of their industry. We need to have standards that are fair. Some employers are trying to do the right thing for workers. They should still be competitive in the industry. There are many ways employers can tilt the playing field, but in such a competitive marketplace, federal law should not be manipulated to provide special favors for employers seeking to deny workers' rights. Workers must be able to work together to raise their standards of living. That means the ability to decide for themselves whether or not they want to collectively bargain. It is only fair for us to conclude that people doing similar work should be governed under the same federal laws.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, Members of the House, as Americans are paying over $3 a gallon for gasoline and have been doing so for a couple of months, we see the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans running away from their record of supporting the oil and gas industry and trying to convince the public that they are deeply concerned and on the side of consumers. They even went so far as to insult the public by suggesting that they would increase the deficit and give them back a $100 check at the end of the summer. Fortunately, the Republican leadership in the House called the idea stupid and it seems to have waned. What the American public really wants is a comprehensive energy policy that gives them choices about their transportation, gives them choices in the heating of their homes and the cooling of their homes, gives them choices in energy conservation. That is what they are looking for, but that is not what the Republicans have delivered over the last 6 years. Why? Because 6 years ago, Vice President Cheney sat down with the executives of the oil companies and made a decision that they would put the oil companies in charge of America's energy policy. They would put the oil companies in charge of whether or not we would have innovation, whether or not we would have new technologies, whether or not we would have alternative energies such as solar, biofuels and all the rest of that. And the oil companies basically decided we would keep doing business on our energy policy as we have since the 1950s and 1960s, that is, we would just let the oil companies continue to drill. That meeting with Mr. Cheney made it very, very profitable for the oil companies because since that time the Congress has done nothing but lavish tax breaks on the oil and gas industry. The policy seems to have worked because when you look at the profits, they have gone through the roof. Chevron netted $4 billion in 3 months. That is a profit of $44 million a day. But they look like a small business alongside of ExxonMobil which reported a profit of $8.4 billion, and that is after they gave the CEO of ExxonMobil a $400 million pay package. And they were still able to get a profit into the billions. I bet they loved being in that meeting with Mr. Cheney where they got the rights to do all this. So Congress has continued to lavish tens of billions of dollars of tax breaks on the industry, income tax deductions for Humvee purchases, opening the California coast and other protected places for oil exploration, liability protection for the oil industry against MTBE contamination of cities' drinking waters that is occurring all over the country, and, finally, a royalty holiday, treating the oil companies like royalty. They won't have to pay the United States taxpayers for the right to drill oil on those lands that are owned by the taxpayer. They will get a royalty holiday. But, of course, today, now the Republican leadership is running around and the President has said that a royalty holiday makes no sense when oil is at $70 a barrel. He actually said it when it was at $50 a barrel. It makes no sense at $50 a barrel, it makes no sense at $60 a barrel, and it makes no sense at $70 a barrel. But the fact of the matter is we don't see one step being taken in this Congress to end that royalty holiday and end it today and give that money back to the taxpayers and reduce the deficit. No, what the Republicans ought to do is they ought to check their voting record and see how voted this last year when our colleague from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva) offered that amendment in April, 2005, to make sure that we would get rid of the royalty holiday. But it didn't pass. It didn't pass because that is not on the oil companies' agenda. And as we now know, the oil companies are running the agenda for this Congress. The Democrats have a better idea. We believe that working together across all of the talents of America, that we can provide energy independence within 10 years. But to do so you would have to dramatically encourage new technologies, alternative forms of transportation, of mass transportation, the use of solar, the use of biofuels, the use of these kinds of conservation efforts combined with new fuels and new technologies to let America be independent, to make choices about its energy future. Today, the President of the United States walks hand in hand with the Sheik from Saudi Arabia and that is our energy policy: Don't do anything to upset the Saudis. The fact of the matter is we have to take control of our energy policy. But we will only do that when we break the link between the Republican Party and the oil and gas industry in this country. We will only have the chance to bring new forms of transportation online, to bring solar energy at a much more affordable price for American consumers, to bring alternative fuel sources online at a more affordable price, to break our dependency on Middle East oil. As our leader said over the weekend on Meet the Press, we want to send our money to the middle west to develop biofuels, to develop switch fuels, to develop syn fuels, to develop ethanol. That is what we want to do, instead of sending our money to the Middle East where it is being used for very dubious purposes in terms of the interests of this country. But this administration to date has not broken its alliance with the oil sheiks in the Middle East and has not broken its alliance with the oil industry in this country. And Americans today continue to drive to work paying over $3 a gallon for gas with no respite in the future because of the absence, the abandonment of this country by this administration for an energy policy that works to the benefit of America's consumers.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7 minutes. Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, my motion to instruct conferees on the pension conference that is now going on between the House and Senate is very simple. It says that any pension restrictions we impose on the Nation's hardest-working employees and retirees must also be applied to the Nation's CEOs and corporate executives. It says no more preferential treatment, legal loopholes, manipulation, or special exemptions for executives with the pensions of the various companies of this country. Today, the Enron criminal trials are reminding us of how Ken Lay and his merry gang ran Enron into the ground through a vast criminal conspiracy of greed and arrogance, all at the expense of consumers, the investors, and tens of thousands of employees who lost billions of irreplaceable life savings. Ken Lay and his cronies plundered the company by putting themselves above the law, beyond the rules, and shamelessly exploited legal loopholes that allowed them to walk away with tens of millions in golden parachutes and perks, while their employees were kept in the dark about the sinking ship of Enron. In fact, they were even advised by Mr. Lay to continue buying the stock while he and his family were selling the stock privately without telling the public or the employees. During the pension debate, President Bush took notice of the preferential treatment for corporate CEOs and executives in pension law, and he said, ``If the rules are okay for the sailor, they ought to be okay for the captain.'' Well, the House pension bill ignores that admonishment. It sets up two sets of rules, one for the sailors and the other for the captains, one for the employees and those who are in the penthouses, one for the employees and those who are in the corporate offices. Two sets of rules, both working, both spending a career perhaps trying to make a company successful but treated differently when it comes to retirement. Under the House pension bill, hardworking employees and retirees are punished when executives do not appropriately fund their pension plans, when the executives manipulate the pension plans to improve the bottom line, when the executives manipulate the pension plans so that they can get stock options so the company appears that it is doing better than it is, when they manipulate the pension plan so that they can terminate that pension plan. These employees then are denied the payouts. They are denied the benefit increases. They are denied the COLAs. That simply is not fair, and it is wrong, and this motion to instruct tells the conferees to stop it, to stop this privilege, to stop this discrimination against hardworking employees with their pensions. Executives are exempt from these restrictions under the pension plan if their plans are underfunded between 60 and 80 percent. They can take a lump sum pension plan. They can take it and leave the company. They get their benefit increases. They get their COLAs. And they frequently have taken the money and run. The House pension bill says that retiring ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond can take his $98 million pension in a lump sum and run. It says that Lee Raymond can take his golden parachute, his stock options, his cushy retirement package worth $400 million and run. He gets his lump sum. He gets his COLA. He gets his benefit increases. He gets his stock options, his pension increases, and his golden parachute. He gets all of that on top of the $686 million he earned from 1993 to 2005. But what happens to the employees? If that pension plan is not funded above 80 percent, those employees do not get a lump sum payment. They are stuck in that plan. They cannot exercise that choice. So here is old Mr. Raymond, Mr. Raymond of ExxonMobil. He gets to take $98 million out. Two of the pension plans are funded at about 60 percent. Mr. Raymond gets to take his money and go on his merry way. The employees, the roughnecks, the people in the oil fields, in the refineries, in the offices, in the research centers, they are stuck. They are stuck. They cannot take a lump sum payment. But it does not just apply to Exxon. This is just the most egregious case where they made a decision that he would walk away with $400 million in benefits, a $100 million lump sum payment, and the employees get none of that. But that is essentially what Ken Lay did, too. Ken Lay insured their pension plans. They take them off the books. They take them off the records so that, no matter what happens, when they go into bankruptcy, they are protected. So here is what happens: we are paying over $3 a gallon for gasoline. That has made Mr. Raymond at Exxon a lot of money. Mr. Raymond has been earning an average of about $144,000 a day. He has a golden parachute worth $400 million; and the House bill says to Mr. Raymond, you go ahead and take your lump sum. It says to Ken Lay, you go ahead and take your lump sum. It says to the CEO of United Airlines, you go ahead and take your lump sum even though you are putting your pension plan into bankruptcy. You can do that. You can protect yourself. Well, the President of the United States, he has not gotten a lot right, but he got this right. He said if it is good for the crew, it is good for the captain. And that is what this motion to instruct says. It says that we have got to stop manipulating these pension plans for the benefit of the employers, for the benefit of the corporate officers, for the benefit of those individuals, as opposed to the working people, the people who are building these companies every day around the world. In the oil industry, people are working in hostile environments, in hostile situations all over the world. But when it comes time for their pension, they are treated as if it did not matter, as if they had nothing to do with the building of the wealth of a great company like Exxon or a great company like United. No. They go to court and they sever the social contract. They dispose of these people. People lost billions of dollars in the United case. Those employees were in bankruptcy. They lost their pensions. But when Mr. Tilton, the CEO, woke up that morning, he was $15 million richer than when he went to bed that night. That is just what he got for taking the company into bankruptcy. That does not talk about his pension plans and the rest of the protections that he got. The time has come, and I think America now sees it, that we have allowed the pensions of American corporations to be manipulated to provide these kinds of benefits. Pension plans have been used for every other purpose except providing a secure retirement to middle-income Americans who spend 25 to 30 years helping to build successful enterprises in this country. When it comes for their retirement, they are second-class citizens. Vote for this motion to instruct and stop that kind of treatment of America's workers.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich). (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlemen from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, this debate is quite fundamental. It is about fairness. I have worked in a lot of oil refineries. I have worked in very cold mornings and very cold nights, and I have worked at the top of cracking towers, and I have cleaned out tanks, and I have worked on the ships that moved the oil across the seas. I thought every day I was working in those efforts I was working hard and trying to have that company be a success so they could pay me and I could support my family. I am sure that is how many workers work, whether they work for Chevron or Exxon or IBM or anyone else. People in America take their work very, very seriously. It identifies them. It is important to them. They show up. They do their job. Yet the system is structured against them, and this pension system is completely structured against them. Because whether it is Enron or whether it is Exxon or whether it is IBM, what we see is the constant manipulation of the pension plans of these workers to benefit the CEOs. This amendment says a very simple thing. It says, you have to treat these workers the same. You do not get to put one worker in a trick box because you do not fund the pension at 80 percent, so, therefore, they cannot have the choice of a COLA or lump sum or an annuity plan. But the CEO, if it is not funded, if it is only funded at 60 percent, they can run the gamut. They can take whatever choice they want. They can take their money now and leave. If they think the company is not going to do well, take a lump sum, secure yourself, go buy an annuity. But the average worker does not get to do that, and that is why millions of American families now are feeling so terribly threatened about their retirement future, because they do not know whether or not this pension will continue to be manipulated. And the fact of the matter is, the House bill, as it was reported, continues to let people manipulate the pensions of hardworking Americans for the benefit of the executives and the CEOs; and that is why we are saying we want a fairer bill like what was passed in the Senate that treats people similarly. What is the incentive for the company to fund its pension plan above 80 percent so that these workers can get a COLA, so that these workers can get a lump sum payment? None. None. There is no price to be paid for being at 80 percent. You get all of the benefits you want as the CEO, as the president of the company, as the executive secretary, as its executive vice president. You get all of your benefits. Life is fine for you. It is just the thousands of people who are working for you that make the company a success that get discriminated against. You know, we have had a series of e-hearings where we talked to people whose pensions were threatened at United, at Delta, at Delphi, at all of those companies. You are talking about the livelihood, the absolute livelihood of those people in terms of their retirement. You are talking about their hopes and their aspirations and their dreams for their retirement nest egg, what they were going to do with their life after years of hard work. And all that can just evaporate through the manipulation of these plans by CEOs and executives. And it is all legal. It is all allowed under the law, and it is allowed under your bill. It is allowed under your bill, that kind of manipulation against hardworking people. At some point, this House has to ask itself, is that fair? Is that just? Is that moral? And the answer is, it is not. When you see the turmoil, when you go home and talk to your constituents and they talk about the foreclosure of their plans and their dreams for their retirement, when they talk about the burden now of trying to take care of a sick spouse because their retirement has been reduced, their retirement has been eliminated, they have been given some measly payout, then you start to understand how unfair this pension system is in this country and how badly it has been manipulated. It is not me that is saying that. A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal ran almost a full page article on the many, many, many ways that pension plans are manipulated to benefit the shareholders, to benefit the stock options, to benefit the compensation plans, to benefit the retirement plans of CEOs. So all of those benefits, to the detriment of the workers. They are tricked up every year on assumptions of income, assumptions of interest rates, assumptions of payouts, assumptions of longevity. All of those things are used to manipulate the pension plans; and, generally, the result is that the worker is left holding the bag. It is one of the reasons we have so many plans that are underfunded. Exxon has all of this profit. Think if they funded their plan from 72 percent to 80 percent. These employees would have a choice. But if they do not do that, they do not have to worry about these employees having a choice. That is what is being addressed in the conference committee. It is about this fundamental fairness for hardworking people. When you lose your pension or a significant portion of your pension when you are 50, 53, 55, 58 years old, where do you go as a middle-class working person in this country to regather those assets so you can have the retirement that you were planning on and your spouse was planning on? Where do you go to get that, to take care of your health care needs in your retirement years? To take care of your rising energy costs in a country without an energy policy? Where do you go to get those resources? The answer is you do not go anywhere. Maybe you take a job after retirement, some part-time job because you lost what you were planning on, you lost what you were paid into because of this corporate manipulation. This amendment, this motion to instruct is simply about the fairness with which we are going to treat working people in this country. And are we going to put an end to it? We would like to do it under the slogan of President Bush, who talked about the equity, how people should have been treated the same at Enron. But, no, that CEO was lying to those people on the bottom floor of that corporation and then running up to corporate penthouse and selling his stock secretly into a trust and then telling his son to secretly sell his stock. They walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars at the time that the company was imploding. But they ran downstairs and they told the employees, it is a great company; we are on the verge of big breakthroughs; buy more stock. Jail is too good for those people. And the lives that they have wrecked, we heard testimony in this Congress from those people who worked for that company who lost their future, who lost their life savings, who lost their retirement, who lost their plans. Jail is too good for Ken Lay and his ilk. But we have got to stop it now when we have the opportunity in the rewrite of the pension bill. That is what this motion is about. I urge people in the name of fairness and decency, for working people in this country, to vote for the Miller motion to instruct.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding; and I want to thank the cosponsors of this legislation and those who have worked on this from both sides of the aisle. For the first time this amendment will give the Ethics Committee an opportunity to revise the rules and the standards of conduct for travel which Members of Congress engage in. This amendment embraces all travel that Members of Congress are confronted with, whether it is from the 501(c)(3) community or from the private community. I happen to think that the Ethics Committee is going to have to make different determinations for different kinds of travel. But the fact of the matter is, because of this amendment, they will have that responsibility to bring greater transparency to that process. And hopefully Members will have to get pre-approval of that travel, and hopefully the Ethics Committee will have to approve that. They will make determinations about what is a legitimate itinerary, the attendance at the various conferences, the participants and the sources of funding. The problem with travel in the past has not been the travel; it has been those who sought out deliberately to game the system. I believe that if the Ethics Committee meets its responsibility, people will not be able to game the system, to hide the sources of financing or hide the purposes of the trip; and Members will be able to deal with it forthrightly and take advantage of travel where it is helpful to their jobs as Members of Congress, to their constituents, and to the country. Also, this will allow for the kind of disclosure and prior disclosure of the trips hopefully so constituents, the press and others can check out what the Ethics Committee has done and they can comment on it. The Members will defend it or not defend it if they want to take these trips and if they truly believe they are valuable. This give us until June 15 for the Ethics Committee to come up with that process. If there is travel to take place prior to that, it requires a two-thirds vote, a strong bipartisan vote of the Ethics Committee to approve any travel prior to that day. I think this is a big step to the reform of congressional travel in the House. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, under rule XXII, clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 2830, the pension conference report. The form of the motion is as follows: I move that the managers on the part of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2830 be instructed to recede to the provisions contained in the Senate amendment regarding restrictions on funding of nonqualified deferred compensation plans, except that-- (1) to the maximum extent possible within the scope of the conference, the managers on the part of the House shall insist that the restrictions under the bill as reported from conference regarding executive compensation, including under nonqualified plans, be the same as restrictions under the bill regarding benefits for workers and retirees under qualified pension plans, (2) the managers on the part of the House shall insist that the definition of ``covered employee'' for purposes of such provisions contained in the Senate amendment include the chief executive officer of the plan sponsor, any other employee of the plan sponsor who is a ``covered employee'' within the meaning of such term specified in the provisions contained in the Senate amendment (applied by disregarding the chief executive officer), and any other individual who is, with respect to the plan sponsor, an officer or employee within the meaning of section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and (3) in lieu of the effective date specified in such provisions contained in the Senate amendment, the managers on the part of the House shall insist on the effective date specified in the provisions of the bill as passed the House relating to treatment of nonqualified deferred compensation plans when the employer's defined benefit plan is in at-risk status.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees on H.R. 2830, the Pension Protection Act. The Senate appointed conferees on March 3 and the House on March 8, and yet 1 month later it appears almost no progress has been made. In fact, I actually would say that the conference seems to have gone backwards. Senator Enzi, the conference chair, promised that there would be an open and bipartisan conference; Mr. Leader Boehner promised the same. Instead, both meetings have been held in secret by a small group of Republican conferees. There are a lot of important issues pending in the pension conference. Every day employers are dumping their pension plans and millions of workers are deeply worried about their retirement security and whether or not they will have sufficient funds for their retirement to support their families. One of the key issues pending in the conference is whether or not older workers will be protected when employers convert their traditional defined benefit plans to a so- called cash balance plan. It is a critical issue for millions of American workers, and it is not a new issue to this House. During the 1990s, hundreds of large employers switched to these cash balance plans, including IBM, whose conversion was ruled illegal. As many as 8 million workers have been affected by these conversions, many of them, perhaps half of them, experienced deep cuts in their pension benefits as a result of these conversions. Let's be clear. Companies promised these benefits to these workers. These workers earned these benefits. Then with some paperwork and a little fancy accounting footwork, companies slashed the benefits of these workers. How did the companies do it? First, the benefits of the traditional pension plan are based upon the worker's pay at the end of their careers and when they are earning the most. Cash balance plans, on the other hand, are based on worker's average pay over the course of their career. With just a simple change on how benefits are calculated, companies can devastate the retirement nest eggs of hard-working employees, workers who gave up wages, who gave up vacation days, who gave up all kinds of benefits as they balanced out their pension plans. Yet we now see companies unilaterally essentially destroying the pension benefits that those workers are entitled to. Older workers under these conversions can lose up to half, half of their expected retirement benefits. Don't take my word for it. That is according to the Government Accountability Office. They tell us that that is what happens to older workers. This chart shows exactly what happens. This is what would happen to the workers who went into the workforce at age 25 and worked for a company. They would see their traditional retirement benefits continue to go up. With a cash balance plan, the retirement benefits go down. For the older workers, this is what they stand to lose. For anyone over about the age of 46, 47 years old, they have a substantial change in the pension benefit that they were counting on. Obviously, for these workers out here, at age 55, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to see how they would recover a sufficient amount of savings to provide for the retirement that they were planning on at that time. And it gets worse if you are 60 years old. So anybody after 45 years of age is greatly disadvantaged under these plans. And that is what is going on in the pension conference committee, is whether or not we will have the opportunity to provide for those older workers. What we now see is that IBM did this and the court stopped those conversions in 1999. The House voted overwhelmingly on several occasions in support of amendments urging the protection of older workers. The Bush administration first tried to lift the moratorium and legalize these conversions. But after 218 Members of the House or the Congress urged the President to reconsider, he withdrew that proposal. The Bush administration changed its position and has submitted proposals that do more to help the older workers. As part of the pension funding reform legislative debate, Senators Baucus, Kennedy, Frist, Grassley, Hatch and Lott brokered a compromise. The compromise largely follows the Bush administration proposal and was passed by the Senate 97-2. This motion to instruct that I am offering today urges the conferees to support the Senate compromise on protecting older workers in the cash balance conversion. The House-passed bill contains no protection for older workers and would actually legalize some of the worst employer practices that jeopardizes worker retirement security and their retirement nest eggs. The AARP, the AFL-CIO, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the National Legislative Retirees Network, and the Pension Rights Center all support this motion. The AARP opposes any pension funding reform bill that does not protect older workers affected by these cash balance conversions. The House of Representatives has already voted three times to require the Treasury Department to protect older workers from age discrimination in cash balance conversions. In 2002, the amendment passed by a vote of 308-121; in 2003, it passed 258-160; and in 2004, it passed 237-162. Mr. Speaker, obviously this House has recognized the unfairness of the cash balance plans to older workers and that older workers ought to be protected. We believe that older workers ought to be given a choice. That is what the Congress did when it changed its pension plan. That is what Secretary of Commerce Snow said that he did when he was running his company, when he sat on the board of other companies, because he said that was the fair thing to do. The Bush administration has come around to that position. The only place where we don't hold that position is under the Republican-passed bill on the pensions that is now in the conference committee. That is why this motion to instruct is important, so that we can make sure that, at a minimum, we can exit that conference committee with the Senate-passed provisions that passed 97-2 to help protect, not perfect, but to help protect older workers who are subject to these dramatic changes by their employers, and who have very little opportunity to recover that nest egg of retirement benefits that they were counting on, that they worked hard to earn, that they negotiated with their employers and now simply, by a unilateral action, are ripped away from them. It is not fair, it is not ethical, it is not right, and this Congress ought to stand up and change it to protect those older workers. I urge my colleagues to support the motion to instruct. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. I want to make clear I think the gentleman misunderstands the nature of the motion. This is not about whether you have hybrid plans or cash balance plans. We made that very clear. We simply want those plans to protect the older workers that stand to lose a great deal of benefits. For younger workers there is some suggestion these plans may be better. It is interesting that 40 percent of the workers in these plans never get to a benefit even under this. But at a minimum, it ought to be clear that older workers are not going to suffer irreparable economic harm in terms of their retirement. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I would just say that this is about whether or not we continue in the direction that the Republican pension bill takes us where the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation said the bill made the system less secure, where the Congressional Budget Office said it made the system less secure, and now what we do not have are the protections on cash balance plans which make it less secure. If we keep going in that direction, if we keep following the Republicans, America's retirement benefits will be less and less secure. Their retirement will be in greater and greater jeopardy. We can change the direction. We can go in another direction. The Senate voted 97-2 to provide these kinds of protections. This is not some crazy partisan idea. This was a big bipartisan bill with Senator Lott and others on this bill, and it is about protecting people's pensions. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) who has been working this issue longer than anyone else in the House.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), a member of the committee.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).