Clerk session vote number: 652
Description: Restrictions on Promotion by the Government of Use by Employee Benefit Plans of Economically Targeted Investments
Bill summary: Expresses the sense of the Congress that it is inappropriate for the Department of Labor (DOL), as the principal enforcer of fiduciary standards in connection with employee pension benefit plans and employee welfare plans, as defined under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), to take any action to promote or otherwise encourage economically targeted investments.
Requires that ERISA provisions be interpreted and enforced without regard to a specified DOL interpretive
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bulletin regarding economically targeted investments, and makes such interpretive bulletin null and void.
Prohibits the Secretary of Labor from issuing any rule, regulation, or interpretive bulletin which promotes or otherwise encourages economically targeted investments as a specified class of investments.
Prohibits DOL officers or employees from traveling, lecturing, or otherwise expending DOL resources to promote, directly or indirectly, economically targeted investments.
Amends ERISA to prohibit Federal agencies or instrumentalities from establishing or maintaining any clearinghouse or other database relating to economically targeted investments for employee benefit plans.
Directs Federal agencies and instrumentalities to immediately terminate contracts or other arrangements which violate this Act.
Declares that nothing in this Act is intended to affect the ability of the DOL to issue advisory opinions, information letters, technical releases, prohibited transactions, exemptions, or other pronouncements interpreting and applying ERISA's fiduciary responsibility rules to particular factual situations, or exempting specific transactions from the prohibited transaction provisions of ERISA.
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Bill titles: To place restrictions on the promotion by the Department of Labor and other Federal agencies and instrumentalities of economically targeted investments in connection with employee benefit plans.
Links for more info on the vote: congress.gov