S10914 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE December 11, 2008 

In addition, Mr. Holder has been in 

private practice since he left the Clinton Justice Department over 8 years 

ago. It is important that we know what 

Mr. Holder has been doing in those 8 

years, which cases he has been involved 

with, and who his clients are, what 

speeches he has made, and so forth. For 

example, public reports have emerged 

that in 2004, the Governor of Illinois 

hired or sought to hire Mr. Holder. We 

certainly need time to learn what that 

is all about. Mr. Holder has not provided the committee with all of this information yet. Again, it is not unreasonable for members of the Judiciary 

Committee to want to receive all of 

these materials and have ample opportunity to study them before holding 

the nomination hearings. As such, I, 

then—this Senator, then—is in support 

of Senator SPECTER’s request that 

Chairman LEAHY move the hearing to a 

later date in January so committee 

members can do their duty and review 

Mr. Holder’s nomination in a responsible manner. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized. 

Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have 

been working, as I think the country 

knows and the Senate knows, for the 

last many weeks trying to come up 

with some way to resolve the issue of 

dealing with Detroit and the automobile manufacturers. We thought we 

were at a place today where we would 

have a series of votes and we were almost there when another Senator submitted another idea. As a result of 

that, there are good-faith negotiations 

going on as we speak. The last I heard 

is that they would have something 

completed by 5:30. I kind of smile when 

I say that, because considering the 

years I have spent here in the Senate, 

sometimes I don’t know if they are referring to ‘‘5:30’’ meaning 10 minutes 

from now or 12 hours and 10 minutes 

from now, but they said 5:30. If they are 

able to work that out, then the bill will 

overwhelmingly pass the Senate. I have 

told the House and the House will have 

to do whatever they do with that. But 

right now, that is not done. 

As I indicated, they said they 

thought a half hour or so ago it would 

be done by 5:30. I hope that is the case. 

I know it is late. I know people want 

more definite definitions of when this 

is all going to happen, but that isn’t 

the way the Senate works, as much as 

we would all like it to be. So if everyone will be patient, there is still a possibility—and even maybe a probability—that sometime this evening we 

would be able to vote. 

Now, Senator MCCONNELL and I don’t 

know at this stage what we will be voting on. If the negotiations which are 

going forward now bear fruit, then that 

will be the issue that I think would 

pass with a significant margin here in 

the Senate. There may be some other 

Senators who want to offer alternatives. I think there may be some 

suggestions for that to take place. At 

this stage, I think it is pretty clear 

that there is no need to vote on the 

House measure, because it is pretty 

clear there aren’t enough votes to pass 

that, but those decisions we will make 

shortly. I think what we are going to 

be voting on is a series of competing alternatives. There is not going to be an 

opportunity to offer a lot of individual 

rifleshot amendments to these different proposals, but I know that a 

number of Senators have one proposal. 

We have the one we talked about we 

will probably vote on today, and then 

we have the bipartisan issue that is 

being worked on right now. If we are 

fortunate, maybe we could wind up 

having three votes or maybe only two 

votes. But, anyway, we are doing our 

best to resolve this issue. 

There is no need to talk about all of 

the Senators involved. We will do that 

if we can work something out and they 

will get all the accolades they need. We 

have had a lot of cooperation today. 

That doesn’t mean we are going to be 

able to work something out, because 

this is a very important issue. But 

right now, I think we are a lot further 

down the road than I thought we would 

be. I was trying to think: Down the 

road distance, so it should be ‘‘farther’’ 

down the road. But, anyway, I wish to 

alert everyone they should be patient 

tonight. We hope to have some votes 

before the night is out. 

If everything falls apart, then we will 

be left with having a cloture vote on 

the Democratic version. Regardless of 

whether we work something out, that 

would be tomorrow morning, as early 

as we want to come in, but hopefully, 

that is not the resolution of this because that may not be the best way to 

solve the problem of Detroit. 

f 

EXTENSION OF MORNING 

BUSINESS 

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the period of morning business be extended until 6:30 p.m. 

tonight with Senators allowed to speak 

therein for up to 10 minutes each. 

Of course, the Senators are always 

very cooperative. If, in fact, there is 

something that Senator MCCONNELL

and I have been able to work out, then 

we will ask that the person be interrupted and we will try to move forward 

with a unanimous consent agreement. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. REID. I note the absence of a 

quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The legislative clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

MAKING TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS 

RELATED TO THE PENSION PROTECTION ACT OF 2006 

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, in a moment I will ask unanimous consent 

that the Senate proceed to passage of 

H.R. 7327, the pension bill. Before I do 

that, I wish to say this is very important relief for seniors and for the country. The bill includes a provision that 

would allow seniors who are 701⁄2 years 

of age not to have to make withdrawals 

from their IRA accounts that the current law requires. Under current law, if 

you are 701⁄2 or older, you must begin to 

withdraw significant amounts from 

your 401(k) accounts or IRA accounts 

and if you don’t, you pay a big penalty. 

At these times it is not wise to require 

that, because the accounts are lower in 

value and they should not have to 

make those withdrawals if they don’t 

want to. 

In addition, this legislation would 

allow companies to postpone making 

increased contributions to their pension plans also required by the recent 

pension law. When we revised pension 

law a short while ago, we were pretty 

strict to protect employees by requiring companies to make contributions 

to the pension plans at a much faster 

rate. That made sense then, but given 

the economic downturn, with the market values down so much lower than 

they were back then, it makes sense, I 

believe—and I think most Senators 

agree—that those contributions should 

be postponed or later modified in order 

to keep companies viable. 

A lot of companies need this to meet 

payrolls in these difficult times, and 

this will prevent them having to freeze 

their benefits. 

I ask unanimous consent that the 

Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 7327, which was received from the House. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will report the bill by title. 

The legislative clerk read as follows: 

A bill (H.R. 7327) to make technical corrections related to the Pension Protection Act 

of 2006, and for other purposes. 

There being no objection, the Senate 

proceeded to consider the bill. 

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, we are 

living through an unprecedented economic downturn. Over the past 15 

months, the Dow Jones Industrial companies have lost more than one-third of 

their value. An end does not appear in 

sight. 

This sharp market decline hurts 

more than just Wall Street. It hurts 

every American with a retirement 

plan. When the market drops, so do the 

assets in pension plans. 

Over the past 15 months, because of 

the current financial crisis, retirement 

accounts have lost as much as $2 trillion in assets due to the current financial crisis. That is $2 trillion that disappeared from the retirement accounts 

of American workers. And that is $2 

trillion that disappeared from the accounts of pension plans. 

December 11, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S10915 

Congress must act now to protect individual retirement accounts and pension benefits and assets. 

This bill provides relief for seniors 

age 701⁄2 and older whom current law 

requires to take distributions from 

their retirement plans. 

Individuals would have the option to 

keep their retirement savings where 

they are. We should not force them to 

take out huge portions of their savings 

when the market is down. 

This bill also contains a number of 

provisions to help ease the strain on 

pension plans. And this bill would help 

to prevent the need for some plans to 

reduce benefits or make extraordinary 

funding contributions due to the market downturn. 

If we fail to act and provide shortterm funding relief, pension plans 

would be unable to afford their increased contributions. By one estimate, current law would require 350 of 

the Fortune 500 companies to contribute an extra $100 billion or more to 

their pension plans next year, even if 

the market rebounds. If these companies did this, they would reduce their 

investment spending by $60 to $70 billion next year. That is something that 

our economy cannot afford. 

This bill provides relief for singleemployer plans that fall below the set 

funding target percentage set in the 

Pension Protection Act of 2006. 

And the bill provides analogous relief 

for multi-employer plans that are faced 

with significant underfunding due to 

market losses. This relief would allow 

them to temporarily freeze their current funding certification or extend the 

time period that they have to restore 

their funding levels. 

The bill also helps prevent benefit restrictions for those single-employer 

plans that may be significantly underfunded next year due to the market 

downturn. 

This bill also contains a number of 

critical technical amendments to the 

Pension Protection Act of 2006. The 

Pension Protection Act of 2006 arguably marks the most sweeping changes 

to the pension laws since the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. 

Like many complicated pieces of legislation, technical corrections to the 

law must be made. 

Technical corrections to the law are 

often time sensitive. That is, many of 

them must be passed by both Houses of 

Congress before the effective date of 

the statute. 

Many of the rules under the Pension 

Act were effective January 1, 2008. This 

means that the time for passing technical corrections has come and gone. 

If we were not to act and pass these 

time-sensitive provisions now, the pension community and the Department of 

the Treasury—the agency tasked with 

interpreting the statute and providing 

the necessary details on how the new 

law works—would be placed in a very 

tough spot. 

That is, the Department of the Treasury would not have the necessary corrections and clarifications of the original intent of the act to sufficiently 

issue the details necessary to allow the 

pension community to achieve proper 

compliance. This would not be fair to 

the pension community or the Treasury Department. 

Failing to pass these technical corrections would therefore be irresponsible. 

Here in the Senate, we passed the 

technical corrections contained in this 

act back in December 2007. We already 

said that these corrections are good 

pension policy. 

Americans need real help from Congress to make sure that their retirement savings are safe and sound and 

available to them when they need it. 

This bill contains a number of provisions that would help to provide relief 

to individuals and pension plans and 

move the economy toward recovery. 

Individuals and the pension community warned that individual retirement 

account holders and pension plan participants could be adversely affected 

without the provisions contained in 

this bill. Passing this pension package 

sends the right message to individuals, 

plan sponsors, and pension plan participants. 

I thank my colleagues for helping to 

make passage of this bill possible 

today. 

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the third 

time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that 

any statements related to the bill be 

printed in the RECORD. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

The bill (H.R. 7327) was ordered to a 

third reading, was read the third time, 

and passed. 

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The legislative clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the 

quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

NOMINATION OF ERIC HOLDER 

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I want to 

speak for just a moment about the 

comments that Senator SPECTER made 

earlier about the process for considering the nomination of Eric Holder as 

Attorney General. 

The Republican members of the Judiciary Committee have been seeking information and doing work to prepare 

for the hearing. But there is a great 

deal of information that is not yet 

available and a great deal of information that hasn’t yet been reviewed, all 

to the point that it is going to take a 

little bit of time to prepare for the 

hearing in order to do it right. Of 

course, we want to do it right. 

While there is absolutely no desire on 

anyone’s part to slow a process down or 

filibuster or in any other way make it 

difficult for the orderly process to unfold for the confirmation of the nominee of the President, we do ask that we 

be accorded the same consideration 

that was given to others in this situation and that there be adequate time to 

confirm him. I see no reason, if he is 

qualified and if he is confirmed, that he 

could not take office very soon after 

the President himself takes office, perhaps as early as a week or two after 

that. So nobody is talking about a long 

delay, but we do need to have adequate 

time. 

In that regard, since the chairman of 

the Judiciary Committee has indicated 

he would like to begin holding hearings 

on January 8, which is literally right 

after we begin the swearing in of the 

new Members and the beginning of the 

next session, there is not adequate 

time for the kinds of things that have 

to be done if that is the date that we 

meet. This has been conveyed to the 

chairman by Senator SPECTER. He has 

asked for a reasonable amount of time 

to get prepared. I hope that can be accommodated. It is of sufficient concern 

that several of us have indicated, 

through a letter to the chairman, that 

we are going to insist on having adequate time for the consideration of his 

nomination. 

I remember the nomination of John 

Ashcroft who was a colleague of everyone here, a Senator from Missouri, 

when he was nominated to become the 

Attorney General; nevertheless, it took 

4 days of hearings for the Senate to decide to confirm him. His hearings 

began on Tuesday, January 16. As I 

said, they lasted for 4 days. The chairman of the committee has, as I said, indicated that the Holder hearings would 

be scheduled for January 8, more than 

a week earlier. I don’t think that is 

adequate for the things we have to do. 

Ashcroft was voted on by the full committee on January 30. He was confirmed on February 1. So that timing 

certainly would be totally appropriate 

for nominee Holder and would not in 

any way delay the administration with 

respect to the office of the Attorney 

General. In fact, irony of ironies, because Senator Ashcroft was not confirmed until February 1, Eric Holder 

himself, who was in charge at the end 

of the Clinton administration, served 

as Acting Attorney General at the beginning of the Bush administration. 

Senator SPECTER, when he was chairman, accommodated numerous requests for sufficient time on the part of 

the then-ranking Democrat, Senator 

LEAHY, on, for example, the nominees 

of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice 

Alito. I think reciprocation would be in 

order. 

Right now, we don’t even have Eric 

Holder’s questionnaire or FBI background investigation, all of which are 

necessary to prepare for the hearing.