Top Republicans are upset with Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su for failing to provide the information they requested regarding the Employee Benefits Security Administration’s (EBSA) enforcement practices.
In a letter to Su sent Thursday, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Chairman Bob Good (R-VA) demanded “responsive materials and transcribed interviews” after Su apparently failed to provide certain materials requested on Sept. 19.
The letter accused EBSA of engaging in “expensive and overreaching investigations of retirement plan sponsors—often described as endless and aimless—that are ultimately punishing employers and discouraging them from sponsoring retirement benefit plans.”
“The Department of Labor’s (DOL) response to the Committee’s inquiry was wholly insufficient,” Foxx and Good wrote. “We must now take additional steps to ensure the Department provides sufficient answers and complies with our requests.”
They added that the DOL has demonstrated a dismissive attitude toward the committee’s oversight responsibilities.
“Even worse, DOL dances around a central factual element of the Committee’s inquiry, which is that 16 percent of EBSA investigations from 2017 were still open four years later. … As we noted in our initial letter, these prolonged investigations create tremendous strain on plan sponsors.”
In the Sept. 19 request, they expressed concern that investigations are taking so long that investigators are often replaced several times. They also claimed that plan sponsors report a lack of purpose or direction to the investigations with seemingly no endpoint.
“If this is the status quo [that] DOL deems acceptable, a serious reevaluation of priorities is needed,” they concluded.
The lawmakers' list of requests included:
- A list of all open investigations, the duration of the investigation, and the specific purpose of the investigation. This request specifically directs DOL not to disclose the parties involved in the investigation.
- An explanation of any timeframes or internal guidance imposed on the timeliness of conducting and closing out investigations, as well as procedures that are taken to ensure those timeframes are honored.
- A sample copy of personnel appraisal criteria for ensuring investigations are timely and efficiently carried out and closed.
- An explanation of the specific steps taken to close all persisting investigations and the consequences to investigators, their supervisors, and EBSA management if investigations are allowed to languish beyond efficient timeframes.
THE FULL TEXT OF THE LETTER IS FOUND HERE.
