A bipartisan group of legislators is pushing for a broader congressional investigation of the Obama administration’s role in a 2009 decision that gutted the pensions and benefits of more than 20,000 salaried and retired auto industry employees as part of the General Motors bankruptcy settlement.
In a letter to Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Rep. Darrell Issa, the group asked “that the Committees which you chair submit additional requests for documents from the Department of the Treasury and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) on matters pertaining to the unjust termination of Delphi Salaried Retiree pensions in the federal government’s bailout of General Motors,”
Lieberman is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, while Issa is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Both panels have held hearings on the GM bankruptcy settlement, but the Issa committee has recently focused most heavily on the Delphi pensions. At the same time the salaried employees pensions were not “made whole” in the settlement, those of an almost equal number of unionized workers received full benefits.
Signers of the letter to Lieberman and Issa include Sen. Rob Portman, R-OH, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-MS, Sen. Thad Cochran, R-MS, Rep. Mike Turner, R-OH, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-PA, Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-OH, Rep. Steve Stivers, R-OH, Rep. Dan Burton, R-IN, Rep. Bill Johnson, R-OH, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-AZ, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-OH, and Rep. Gregg Harper, R-MS.
“We are writing to request that the Committees which you chair submit additional requests for documents from the Department of the Treasury and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) on matters pertaining to the unjust termination of Delphi Salaried Retiree pensions in the federal government’s bailout of General Motors,” the signers said in the letter.
“Given the nature of the correspondence made public at the House Committee’s hearing on July 10, 2012, and in recent press reports, it is our hope that these additional requests will yield a thorough production from the Treasury and the PBGC. We believe that these requests will ensure that Congress is provided full and complete disclosure and that these agencies are held accountable to the American taxpayers,” they said.
Earlier this week, Daily Caller reported on a series of emails among Obama officials in the White House and the U.S. Department of the Treasury concerning details of the negotiations and possible settlement terms in the GM bankruptcy negotiations. The emails appear to contradict testimony last month before the Issa panel by three members of the White House Auto Task Force that GM officials were solely reponsible for the resolution of the Delphi issues.
Yesterday, members of the Delphi Salaried Retirees Association, which recently won a court decision directing the Obama administration to turn over thousands of documents concerning the GM bailout, appeared on a new video in which they demanded to know why their pensions were cut while those of their unionized counterparts were not.
