“Senate Democrats seem intent on turning the Department of Labor’s employee pension protection division into a toothless watchdog -- just months after thousands of honest employees at Enron lost their retirement savings in a corporate meltdown,” House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH) said. “Workers want stronger protections and stronger enforcement of pension laws, and this proposal goes in the opposite direction.”

     The Senate Democrat plan would divert $3 million in funding from the DOL’s Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration (PWBA), which helps to safeguard the pension assets and retirement security of American workers. The PWBA oversees the enforcement of employee benefit law and currently has open investigations into Enron and Worldcom. The Senate bill also cuts the Bush Administration’s funding request for two other DOL agencies that protect retirement security and ensure the integrity of organizations that manage pension funds, including the DOL’s Office of Labor and Racketeering & Fraud Investigations, which works to keep in check the growth of labor racketeering and organized crime's involvement in labor-related activities, particularly employee benefit plans.

     “This is even worse than robbing Peter to pay Paul -- because under this scheme, Peter and Paul both lose,” Boehner said. “This is a backwards scheme that is likely to hurt the very people we should be trying to protect -- American workers, who are still waiting for the Senate to follow the House in passing a pension protection bill for President Bush to sign.”