FARGO, N.D. – U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp joined workers and retirees in Fargo to provide an update on the new 16-person bipartisan congressional pension committee she was appointed to that is tasked with solving the pension crisis threatening thousands of North Dakota retirees and retirees across the country.

During a monthly meeting of the Fargo Committee to Protect Seniors Rights, Heitkamp discussed with the group the first meeting of the congressional committee which was held in March. Heitkamp announced that she will host events in North Dakota that will contribute to the committee’s work, including bringing Ken Feinberg -- the then- U.S. Treasury official who oversaw the restructuring of the Central States Pension Plan -- to the state to talk about potential solutions. Feinberg played a key role in supporting workers and retirees during the effort.

Over the next several months, the congressional committee will hold five public hearings and at least one field hearing, including hearings focused on retirees, current workers, and small businesses. The committee also plans to hear directly from U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin along with other White House officials, to discuss their plans on how to improve the pension system.

For years, Heitkamp has stood with North Dakota’s workers and retirees and fought to safeguard their retirement savings, and she has specifically fought to protect those who are part of the Central States Pension Fund. Without action from Congress, 2,000 North Dakotans and 400,000 pension fund participants across the country who paid into Central States Pension Fund, as well as a total of 1.5 million retirees nationwide who are part of various pension funds, will see their pensions drastically cut through no fault of their own.

“This committee shoulders an important responsibility – to protect the hard earned pensions of workers and retirees who did everything right by working for decades to support their families and putting into their pensions to save for retirement. But now, through no fault of their own, their pensions could be taken away and it isn’t fair or right,” said Heitkamp. “I fought to be appointed as one of just 16 members of Congress on this committee and I’m pushing to make sure our bill to fix the pension crisis is seriously considered. As we get to work on this committee to solve the pension crisis impacting so many retirees, we also need to recognize that if Congress doesn’t address this serious problem, the pensions system in the United States could collapse, impacting our economy and workers in so many fields beyond those whose pensions are currently at risk. These retirees and our country deserve a well-run pension system and a plan in place that rewards hard work, and that’s what I’m fighting to do.”

“It means so much to us to have Senator Heitkamp serving on the new congressional pension committee,” said Dennis Kooren, head of the Fargo Committee to Protect Seniors Rights and a former UPS driver in Fargo for 30 years. “She has been fighting with us for the past several years to protect our pensions and we know she will make sure our voices are heard as this committee gets to work. Our fight is about justice and fairness for workers and retirees and their families who don’t deserve to have their hard earned retirement savings ripped away from them. For many, losing their pensions would mean they would be left in the cold. It’s just plain wrong. We still hope the Butch Lewis Act, which Senator Heitkamp helped write and introduce, will pass and are encouraged that this committee will force Congress to act on the pension crisis before the end of the year. The thousands of workers, retirees, and their families across North Dakota can’t afford to wait.”

The Committee is made up of 16 members who were appointed by House and Senate leaders. The members include eight senators and eight congressmembers, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats.

Heitkamp helped secure the creation of the Committee as part of the overall budget compromise that Congress passed in February. The Committee will have instructions to report a bill by the last week of November 2018.

Heitkamp has long been working with workers and retirees across North Dakota and fought to safeguard their retirement savings from harsh cuts. In November 2017, Heitkamp announced the Butch Lewis Act – which she helped write and introduce – during a rally in Bismarck with over 100 workers, retirees, and their families. The bill would put the pension plans back on solid footing so current workers, retirees, and employers have the security of knowing their pensions will be available for decades to come, without cuts. The creation of the Select Committee will provide a process for Congress to consider Heitkamp’s bill and work toward a bipartisan solution that can solve the pension crisis. If Congress doesn’t act, these retirees and their families will see severe cuts to their hard-earned retirement savings.

The Butch Lewis Act would:

• Provide financing to put failing pension plans back on solid ground to ensure they can meet their commitments to retirees today and workers for decades to come.
• Prevent a single dollar of cuts to benefits retirees have earned.
• Put safeguards in place so pension plans remain strong so they will be there for today's workers when they retire.

If the Central States Pension Plan and other pension plans are allowed to fail, not only will employers no longer be able to pay promised benefits, but taxpayers would be at risk of having to pay billions when the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the government sponsored insurance company for multiemployer pensions, has an exposure of $59 billion and is projected to become insolvent by 2025. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost of backstopping the PBGC, should it fail, would be $101 billion over 20 years. Such a consequence reinforces why workers, retirees, families, and communities are at risk through no fault of their own and must be protected.

Background

Heitkamp had been working with the Teamsters and North Dakota workers and retirees who are participants in the Central States Pension Fund to press for options from Treasury and the fund that don’t include unfair and steep cuts to benefits. Heitkamp spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 2016 to push the U.S. Treasury Department to reject the proposed harsh cuts, and joined retirees and workers at a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. in 2016 to push back against cuts.

In 2016, those workers and retirees faced pension cuts of up to 60 percent under a plan to restructure the multiemployer pension plan, which is no longer solvent. After pressure from Heitkamp and workers across the country, Kenneth Feinberg -- the then-Treasury official overseeing the restructuring of the pension plan -- announced that the U.S. Department of the Treasury rejected the proposed cuts, saying they were unfair for workers and retirees who would be impacted.