Tobacco Bill Passes without Key Federal Retirement Provisions; NFFE Leadership Vows to Fight On
Monday, June 15, 2009(National Federation of Federal Employees)
This past Friday, the
House of Representatives voted 307-97 in favor
of the Senate’s version of H.R. 1256, the
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control
Act, which lacked many critical provisions for
federal employees.
The House version of the
bill, passed overwhelmingly in early April,
included a number of important federal
retirement issues such as granting credit for
unused sick leave to employees enrolled in the
Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS),
reforms to the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), and a
provision to make it easier to return to the
federal sector from private employment, among
others.
The Senate version,
passed by the chamber last Wednesday and then
by the House the following Friday, retained
provisions addressing TSP reform, but lacked
the additional retirement language included in
the House version of the bill. This final
version included provisions creating a Roth
option within the TSP, automatically enrolling
new employees, and permitting spouses of
deceased federal employees to continue
investing in the plan.
“Bluntly speaking, this
bill was a hard pill to swallow,” said Randy
Erwin, Legislative Director of the National
Federation of Federal Employees. “We are deeply
disappointed to see the exclusion of a number
of critical retirement issues, particularly the
sick leave benefit. Nonetheless, we are pleased
that we were able to win the TSP reforms for
our people.”
The final version of the
bill is now on its way to the White House,
where it is expected to be signed by President
Obama later this week.
“Although we did not
prevail this time, we are not done fighting for
these critical provisions,” said Erwin.
“Federal employees deserve a fair and
just retirement, and we are going to keep
pushing these reforms until they are passed
into law.”