James Traficant: “Mr. Chairman, we are talking about perception here. Does the Congress of the United States want the perception to exist…”

“Mr. Chairman, we are talking about perception here. Does the Congress of the United States want the perception to exist that we want to make sure, if you look at the words, that nothing in this bill shall be construed to prohibit pension plans from investing in domestic as opposed to foreign investments? That is the substance of the Green amendment. It makes no significant change in the ultimate goals of the legislative initiative. But do we want the American investment community thinking, my God, if we are going to make a call to the Department of Labor, we could be in some way violating the law, and we better be careful about trying to develop some understanding about the legal consequences of, in fact, investing these pension funds in America? We are talking about perception. To me, this is unbelievable. ERISA, as consistently interpreted by Department of Labor and the courts, allows pension plans to consider the collateral economic benefits of a potential investment, provided that potential investment has a comparable risk-adjusted return to other potential investments and is otherwise consistent. This bill, then, would call into question the ability of pension plans to consider collateral benefits.”