Yesterday the Senate voted 78-19 to provide American companies more than $80 billion in pension savings. It saves companies substantial amounts on their pension plans by changing the way their required contributions are calculated. The legislation ends a requirement that contributions be tied to interest rates on 30-year Treasury bonds; it substitutes a rate based on a composite of long-term corporate bonds for 2004 and 2005. The passage of this measure allows President Bush to sign legislation that provides $1.6 billion in additional relief to steel companies and larger airlines.

Opponents of the bill criticized the bill as unfair because it didn't provide the same benefits to some smaller union pension funds. Multi-employer plans which cover 10 million Americans were not covered in the legislation. Many Democrats were split because some labor unions backed the bill as did some segments of the auto industry. Democratic leadership did not send signals that it would stand in the way of final approval. The Senate may get another chance to vote on aid for smaller businesses participating in regional plans covering unionized workers next month. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) has a proposal for helping them which could be voted on as a part of a stalled proposal for a tax break for exporters which is expected to come up after a weeklong recess.

Low fare airlines including JetBlue and America West opposed the legislation because these companies don't have the pension obligations of their larger competitors and gave the larger airlines an unfair advantage. Supporters of the bill said that this measure was only a temporary fix and that other pension plans could be helped later.

Of the 19 Senators who opposed the bill, twelve were Democrats and nine were Republicans.

The measure has already passed the House of Representatives and supporters of the bill were hopeful to get the bill to the President's desk in time to give a break to companies that have to make quarterly pension payments on April 15.