mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time , and i rise today to oppose h.r. 2830 , the so-called pension protection act , not because the system certainly does not need to be reformed , but because i think this particular vehicle , the way it was constructed , actually does damage to what used to be our three-legged stool of retirement security . 
we used to rely on pensions ; personal savings ; and , of course , social security . 
we spent a great deal of this past year fighting any efforts to privatize social security and making sure that we had that leg in place . 
this bill does nothing to enhance personal savings , something this congress ought to be taking up and making sure we do enhance . 
with respect to pensions , we are in need of serious reform , but this moves us in the wrong direction . 
we have millions of americans who have worked and tried to put their houses in order , tried to make sure when they retired they had a dignified and comfortable living , but this situation shows us over and over again that companies are now finding it better for themselves financially to go into bankruptcy , capsize their pension responsibilities , and then sometimes coming out more profitable for the shareholders and for some of the ceos but not for the rank-and-file workers . 
this is not fair , it is not right , and it certainly is not sound policy for this country . 
in too many instances , these companies are defaulting without first having made every possible effort to finance these pension plans and making them work . 
workers on the other hand have had decades of working for companies , providing loyal service , the bargain for which was that in the end they would have a guaranteed pension . 
many of them had forgone wages during the course of their 20 , 25 , 30 years of service . 
ceos , however , are still getting golden parachutes . 
they are getting the chance to steer their businesses into court to dump the pension plans and come out and still get taken care of handsomely ; yet workers do not . 
the congressional budget office and the pension benefit guaranty corporation both say that this bill will actually add to the pension benefit guaranty corporation 's deficit ; that the bill could actually chase companies out of the defined benefit system and leave workers with fewer choices and plans for retirement than they have now . 
this bill does not seem to do anything to discourage the pension plan terminations that threaten workers ' retirement security , and it does not stop companies from dumping plans in bankruptcy . 
in committee , we offered an amendment that would allow the pension benefit guaranty corporation to intervene earlier , to work with companies in making sure they first exhausted all their options for making sure the plans survived before permitting them to terminate the plans and go into bankruptcy . 
a substitute for this bill would have allowed us to present that notion again . 
unfortunately , our colleagues on the republican majority saw fit not to allow a substitute amendment so that we could not debate this proposal . 
and i suspect we do not see it here today because it would have carried . 
we would have gotten a majority of people in this chamber to understand that everything should be done that is possible to prevent a plan from going into bankruptcy before the plan is actually terminated . 
companies should first have to exhaust every single avenue of creative financing in order to save and restore pensions before they allow bankruptcy filings . 
the pension benefit guaranty corporation does have expertise it can lend to companies before it gets to that situation . 
for those reasons and many others , mr. speaker , i urge we vote against this bill and hope we get a better vehicle in the future . 
