[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 2] [Senate] [Page 2131] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]APPOINTING PENSION CONFEREES Mr. REID. Mr. President, right before the recess, the distinguished majority leader and I had an exchange regarding the pension reform conference. Everyone acknowledges the conference is necessary. The pension reform bill is headed to conference. It is a very important piece of legislation that will affect the pensions of millions of working Americans. It has strong bipartisan support. It passed this Senate by a vote of 97 to 2. This has boiled down to something that is fairly simple: Who will be the conferees? We have a right, of course, on our side to choose who we believe should be in the conference. The distinguished majority leader has the right to choose whom he wants to be in the conference. Arbitrarily, the majority leader said that conference would have seven Republicans and five Democrats. That is not acceptable. We have said that because of the complexity of this issue we need another Democrat. We are willing to maintain the margin of two where Republicans would have an advantage. But we believe it should be eight to six. Republicans would get another conferee. Democrats would get another conferee. Now, certainly, we are eager to work on producing a conference report that will protect the benefits working Americans have earned, provide certainty to employers who sponsor pensions, and strengthen the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. I can see nothing harmful about having six Democrats instead of five. It is important to get the right people into the room when these issues are being discussed and decisions are being made. Remember, this conference will have jurisdictional aspects relating to the Finance and the HELP Committees. When we had the corporate tax bill last year, there were 23 conferees--23 conferees. We are saying there should be, again, eight Republicans and six Democrats. Conferees on this legislation will need to resolve a number of important and very technical issues because we have different feelings than does the House. And when I say ``we,'' I mean Democrats and Republicans, as indicated by the overwhelming vote to get it out of here. I have confidence in the abilities of the two lead Senators on our side, Senators Kennedy and Baucus. But this is one conference where the addition of a couple more sets of eyes is likely to lead to better legislation. So I would hope the majority leader would focus his attention on this issue and let the conference go forward. The only thing holding this up is whether this conference will have six Democrats or five in arriving at a bill that will be brought back to this body. ____________________