Mr. President, due to a previous obligation, I was unable to vote on the conference report to H.R. 3108, the Pension Funding Equity Act of 2004. If I had been present, I would have voted in support of the conference report. I appreciate the work done on this conference report by my colleagues, Senators Grassley, Gregg, McConnell, Baucus, and Kennedy. As others have mentioned before, this legislation is very important to many businesses and their employees suffering from the recent economic downturn and in need of pension relief that the Act will provide.

While the Act will help millions of employees who are covered under this measure, I am concerned that approximately 9.7 million Americans who belong to multi-employer pension plans, many of them in the construction industry, who are facing the same problems as employees covered by other pension plans, will not be receiving this relief. In January, when the Senate overwhelmingly passed H.R. 3108, we agreed that our pension laws should affect not just single-employer plans, but also multi-employer plans. We thought including multi-employers was fair and just. Unfortunately, in conference, there were some that agreed with the Bush Administration that multi-employer plans should only receive partial relief. Some would say that the relief will be four percent, other will say it is even less than that. All I know is that millions of hardworking Americans, who report to work just like any other employee, will not receive this relief.

However, with the April 15th deadline where many employers were facing an inflated contribution to their pension plans and the Administration's threat of a veto if the final bill included multi-employer relief, I could not penalize approximately 35 million Americans who are covered by single-employer defined benefit plans. The low 30-year Treasury bond interest rates and the unpredictable stock market have adversely affected many companies that contribute to these defined benefit plans. Again, while I believe these conditions affected not just single-employer plans, but also multi-employer plans, I could not jeopardize the 35 million Americans who could have lost their pensions if this important legislation were not enacted into law.

Thank you Mr. President, I yield the floor.