Everything old is new again with the reintroduction of thePublic Employee Pension Transparency Act (PEPTA), which seeks tocompel state and local governments to publish theirpension liabilities—or be penalized ifthey fail.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-California, wouldcompel state and local governments to publish theirpension liabilities on a searchablewebsite, and deprive them of their ability to offer tax-free bondsif they fail to do so.

Citing a “lack of meaningful disclosure” about the actual stateof pension liabilities, the bill—variations of which werepreviously submitted by Nunes in 2010 and 2013—would require thatstate and local governments would be required to file a report foreach plan year that would include a range of information.

Read: Pew calls for more transparency in publicpensions

Included would be a schedule of funding status; a schedule ofcontributions by the plan sponsor; “[a]lternative projections … foreach of the next 60 plan years following the plan year of the cashflows associated with the current liability, together with astatement of the assumptions used in connection with suchprojections”; actuarial assumptions used for the plan year; abreakdown of plan participants according to their status (active,retired, receiving benefits); “[a] statement of the plan’sinvestment returns, including the rate of return, for the plan yearand the 5 preceding plan years”; and how the sponsor “expects toeliminate any unfunded current liability that may exist for theplan year and the extent to which the plan sponsor has followed theplan’s funding policy for each of the preceding 5 plan years.”

Supplementary reports would also be required. Opposition to thebill on the part of numerous state and local governmentassociations has already surfaced, on the grounds that, accordingto the International City/County Management Association’s website,“Such legislation would mandate a costly, duplicative, and complexlayer of new federal reporting on top of existing state and localaccounting and reporting requirements.”

They are also, of course, opposed to the threat to bond issuancethe bill proposes for noncompliance.