WASHINGTON — A bill to let some railway pension funds be invested on Wall Street advanced in the U.S. Senate on Monday after a Republican attempt to attach unrelated amendments on energy and human cloning failed, reports a wire service.
But a handful of determined opponents said they were not giving up and would try to amend the measure on Tuesday with proposals to delay or rewrite some of its provisions — leaving it unclear when a final vote on the bill would take place.
The railway retirement bill would let the federally administered railroad pension system take some assets out of Treasury bonds and invest them in private securities instead.
The bill was approved by the House of Representatives in July, and has broad bipartisan support in the Senate, but has been caught up in the feud over what legislation should take precedence in the waning days of this year’s session.
The Republican attempt to load it down with energy legislation and a six-month moratorium on human embryo cloning was in part an attempt to force a debate on those issues — which Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, has refused to bring to the floor until next year.
But the chamber overwhelmingly voted against the unwieldy Republican amendment on Monday evening, and Daschle spoofed the attempt.
“In all my years, I don’t recall a more unusual marriage of issues involving public policy than this one,” Daschle said.
AMENDMENTS TO DELAY CHANGES
The railway retirement plan would cut railroads’ payroll taxes while boosting retirees benefits, and it is backed by both the companies and the unions.
But it is opposed by several influential Senate Republicans, including Phil Gramm of Texas, and his aides said he had a fresh crop of amendments ready.
One would postpone the tax and benefit changes until the new private investments actually begin to earn income. Another would link the railway retirement age, which the bill proposes to lower to 60 in some cases, to the Social Security retirement age, which is moving from 65 to 67.
Last week Gramm mocked the bill as a shameless collusion of railway and labor interests at the expense of the taxpayer, who he said would have to back up the scheme if the proposed private investments go sour.
But on Monday Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, defended the measure, saying it had a clause that would help safeguard against a possible taxpayer bailout if things go wrong.
He said the clause would raise taxes on rail employers if pension fund reserves drop below four years’ worth of benefits.
“I could not disagree more with the suggestion that this legislation was some kind of underhanded attempt at wrongdoing by the retirees, workers, and employees in the industry,” Hatch said.