Title: Financial Freedom Act of 2022
Policy area: Labor and Employment

Summary:
Financial Freedom Act of 2022
This bill prohibits the Department of Labor from limiting the type or range of investments that fiduciaries may offer participants and beneficiaries in certain employer-sponsored retirement plans. The bill applies to certain defined contribution plans that permit participants or beneficiaries to exercise control over the assets in the account, such as a 401(k) plan that allows participants or beneficiaries to select additional investment options through a self-directed brokerage window.

[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4147 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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117th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 4147

To prohibit the Secretary of Labor from constraining the range or type 
of investments that may be offered to participants and beneficiaries of 
individual retirement accounts who exercise control over the assets in 
                             such accounts.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              May 5, 2022

Mr. Tuberville introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
  referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To prohibit the Secretary of Labor from constraining the range or type 
of investments that may be offered to participants and beneficiaries of 
individual retirement accounts who exercise control over the assets in 
                             such accounts.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Financial Freedom Act of 2022''.

SEC. 2. FIDUCIARY DUTIES WITH RESPECT TO PENSION PLAN INVESTMENTS.

    Section 404(a) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 
1974 (29 U.S.C. 1104(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
    ``(3)(A) In the case of a pension plan that provides for individual 
accounts and permits a participant or beneficiary to exercise control 
over the assets in the participant's or beneficiary's account, nothing 
in paragraph (1)--
            ``(i) requires a fiduciary to select, or prohibits a 
        fiduciary from selecting, any particular type of investment 
        alternative, provided that a fiduciary provides the participant 
        or beneficiary an opportunity to choose, from a broad range of 
        investment alternatives, the manner in which some or all of the 
        assets of the participant's or beneficiary's account are 
        invested, according to regulations prescribed by the Secretary; 
        or
            ``(ii) requires that any particular type of investment be 
        either favored or disfavored, other than on the basis of the 
        investment's risk-return characteristics, in the context of the 
        plan fiduciary's objective of providing investment alternatives 
        suitable for providing benefits for participants and 
        beneficiaries.
    ``(B) In the event that a fiduciary selects a self-directed 
brokerage window as an investment alternative for a plan described in 
subparagraph (A)--
            ``(i) the Secretary shall not issue any regulations or 
        subregulatory guidance constraining or prohibiting the range or 
        type of investments that may be offered through such brokerage 
        window;
            ``(ii) subsection (c) shall apply to such self-directed 
        brokerage window; and
            ``(iii) the diversification requirement of paragraph (1)(C) 
        and the prudence requirement of paragraph (1)(B) are not 
        violated by the fiduciary's selection of a self-directed 
        brokerage window as an investment alternative or as a result of 
        the exercise of a participant or beneficiary's control over the 
        assets in such self-directed brokerage window.''.
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