mr. speaker , i rise to speak on behalf of 7 , 000 current and former ibm employees who live in my district . 
while most of this bill is necessary and the legislation is appropriate , the weakness of the bill is that it fails to clarify the rules concerning the conversion of defined benefit pension plans into cash balance pension plans . 
i understand the bill will not affect the ibm employees and their court case . 
it could , however , affect millions of americans that are currently vested in defined benefit pension plans . 
even though they may be working for a very profitable company , they could , under the terms of this bill , show up for work one day and learn that their promised benefits have been dramatically reduced with the sweep of a pen . 
under cash balance plans , older , long-serving employees do not have the same opportunities to build up retirement benefits that younger workers do . 
the bill before us today would allow conversions to take place but gives no protections to workers during these transitions . 
i offered an amendment last night at the rules committee to provide protections to vested workers . 
unfortunately , the committee did not rule my amendment in order . 
the senate version of the bill contains more protections for workers . 
for those and other reasons aarp supports the senate passed bill and opposes the house bill . 
i would hope protections like the amendment i tried to offer will be incorporated in the final version . 
while i am voting today to move the bill forward into conference with the senate in the hopes more worker protections can be added , i reserve the right to oppose a report that fails to correct this glaring omission . 
