PlainBillCongress, translated.Legislation. Context. Public interest.Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Congressional Research Service
Version 00 · Introduced in Senate · Jun 28, 2007
Restoring Pension Promises to Workers Act - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to require the inclusion in gross income of all income previously deferred under a nonqualified deferred compensation plan if an employer maintaining such a plan fails to meet certain participation, vesting, and minimum benefit requirements.
Amends the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to: (1) deny ERISA pension plan administrators the right to recover overpayments made to plan participants and beneficiaries in cases of hardship or insignificant amounts; (2) impose a three-year limitation period for bringing any action to recover an overpayment; (3) prohibit the elimination of accrued pension plan benefits during corporate mergers and acquisitions; and (4) establish in the Department of Labor an Office of Pension Participant Advocacy to protect pension plan participants.
Amends federal employee personnel provisions to: (1) entitle former spouses of federal employees who die before establishing a valid claim for an annuity to 55% of such deferred annuity or a lump-sum payment; (2) permit divorced spouses of federal employees to collect court-awarded retirement benefits when such employees are first eligible to retire (currently, only available at the time the employee actually retires); (3) entitle certain former spouses of retired federal employees divorced prior to September 14, 1978, to a survivor annuity; and (4) give priority to a surviving spouse of a federal employee in the distribution of balances in a Thrift Savings account, unless such spouse consents to the designation of another beneficiary.
People & committees
Sen. Harkin, Tom [D-IA] · D–IA
Legislative record
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Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Introduced in Senate
Primary sources
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No related bills are listed in this snapshot. This does not establish whether the proposal has appeared in earlier Congresses.
Source last updated: Aug 14, 2025. Consult Congress.gov for the current record.
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