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July 27, 2011 at 12:49 PM
A day after lawmakers told Phyllis Borzi, head of the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) to repropose the agency’s controversial rule amending the definition of fiduciary, Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., said Wednesday that her office plans to meet with both Borzi and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to discuss the fiduciary proposal.
“You can’t have two [different fiduciary] definitions from the SEC and DOL and still provide people with the financial education they need,” Hagan, a member of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, said during remarks at an event sponsored by the Financial Services Roundtable in Washington. Fiduciary rulemaking, she said, “is an issue that’s at the top of the chart.”
The roundtable, “Protect 2011: Workplace Benefits and Financial Security,” included comments about EBSA’s proposal to redefine fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions, told Borzi during a hearing on Tuesday to assess the impact of EBSA’s fiduciary proposal, that the current proposal “is an ill-conceived expansion of the fiduciary standard.”
He said that the proposal would “undermine efforts by employers and service providers to educate workers on the importance of responsible retirement planning,” and “may deny investment opportunities and drive up costs for the individuals it is intended to protect.”
