House Passes PPA Technical Corrections

Written by Nick Curabba

The U.S. House of Representatives on March 12 passed the Pension Protection Technical Corrections Act (H.R. 3361). The Senate passed a similar bill, the Pension Protection Technical Corrections Act (S. 1974) late last year.  Because there are differences in the bills, a conference committee will be convened to come to a consensus bill.

Both bills would make a series of corrections to the Pension Protection Act of 2006, the comprehensive funding reform legislation enacted in 2006.  The complex nature of the PPA, and the unconventional legislative process used to get in through Congress, made a technical corrections bill almost an inevitability.  While there was some initial wrangling last year to enact a corrections bill that would address some of the more substantive concerns some had with the PPA, this current version of the corrective legislation appears to be limited in scope to corrections of a truly technical nature.

The legislative language of the House bill is available here, as is a summary prepared by the Ways and Means Committee staff.

Although experience tells us that it is never a good idea to count out rapid and unexpected action on pension-related legislation, in an election-year shortened Congressional session we are less than sanguine about enactment this year.