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STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. KAINE (for himself and Mr. Cassidy):
S. 2517. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to allow for periodic automatic reenrollment under qualified automatic contribution arrangements , and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Mr. KAINE. Madam President, today I am introducing the Auto Reenroll Act of 2023, alongside Senator Cassidy. Enacting this bill would improve financial security for Americans by strengthening their private retirement savings.
Nearly 7 in 10 Americans working in the private sector have access to employer-sponsored retirement plans, but a quarter of those with access do not participate in those plans. This means less money saved for retirement. Often, it means leaving money on the table, in the form of employer-matching contributions. Encouraging more employees to participate in their workplace plans would increase their overall compensation and improve their financial security and retirement outlook.
The Auto Reenroll Act of 2023 would boost participation by encouraging safe harbor retirement plans to adopt automatic reenrollment features. Automatic enrollment plans have been tremendously successful at encouraging workers to participate in employer-sponsored plans, but employees who opt out of participating at the beginning of their tenure will likely never reconsider that decision. This bill would build on the success of auto enrollment by permitting employers to reenroll nonparticipants once every 3 years, providing them another opportunity to consider participation. This would encourage those employees to reassess their nonparticipation as their financial situation evolves.
I encourage my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation to bolster private retirement savings.
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By Mr. KAINE (for himself and Mr. Warner):
S. 2547. A bill to amend the Natural Gas Act to bolster fairness and transparency in the consideration of interstate natural gas pipeline permits, to provide for greater public input opportunities in the natural gas pipeline permitting process, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Mr. KAINE. Madam President, today, I am introducing a bill to make the process of siting natural gas pipelines fairer, more transparent, and more responsive to landowner concerns.
For some time now, I have been listening to Virginians with passionate views on the process involved in permitting the Mountain Valley Pipeline, as well as the previous proposal for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. For various reasons, many oppose one or both of these projects, while others support these projects. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, is tasked with analyzing all the issues--
purpose and need for a project, impacts on people living on the route, potential risks to the environment or property--and deciding what course best serves the public interest.
From listening to all sides, I have concluded that while reasonable people may reach different conclusions, FERC's public input process is flawed and could be better. Accordingly, this legislation proposes several steps to address several shortcomings, all of which were originally brought to my attention by Virginia constituents. For instance, this bill requires programmatic analysis of pipelines proposed around the same time and in the same geographic vicinity so that the full impacts of multiple projects can be analyzed. It requires a greater number of public comment meetings so that citizens are not required to commute long distances to meetings at which they must speed through just a few minutes of remarks on these complex topics. It ensures that affected landowners are given proper notice and compensation. It guarantees that landowner complaints will be heard before construction commences. And it clarifies the circumstances under which eminent domain should and should not be used.
I am pleased to be joined by my colleague Senator Mark Warner on this bill. The public deserves reasonable opportunity to weigh in on energy infrastructure projects, and we are heeding calls by our constituents to make this process fairer and more transparent without mandating a particular outcome.
I encourage the Senate to consider this legislation, not to pave the way for pipelines nor to throw up insurmountable roadblocks to them but to give the public greater certainty that the Federal Government's infrastructure decisions are fair and transparent.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 169, No. 129
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