The House on July 24 approved the Rehabilitation for Multiemployer Pensions Act (H.R. 397), a bill to address the multiemployer pension crisis. The vote was 264-169, with 29 Republicans joining Democrats in voting to support the bill.

The bill, sponsored by Ways & Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA), would establish a Pension Rehabilitation Administration within the Department of the Treasury and a related trust fund to make loans to multiemployer defined benefit pension plans that are either in critical and declining status or became insolvent after December 16, 2014, and have not been terminated. Treasury must issue bonds to fund the loan program and transfer amounts equal to the proceeds to the trust fund established by the bill.

The sole amendment to the bill was sponsored by Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN), who called the base bill a "failed step backwards" in the effort to save multiemployer pension plans. The amendment, which would set interest rates for loans provided under the bill at 5% annually for the first five years and 9% thereafter, was defeated on a 186-245 vote.

The bill faces tough sledding in the Republican-controlled Senate. In the last Congress, a bicameral, bipartisan joint select committee on multiemployer pension funding failed to reach agreement on a solution to the crisis.

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