Large employers can and do pace the private sector in designing retirement saving strategies for their workforces, thinks Aliya Robinson.

To continue to do so, those employers could use a hand from Capitol Hill.

Robinson, who was recently named senior vice president of retirement and compensation policy at The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), has spent most of the past two decades reaching out to lawmakers on just about every retirement policy matter under the sun.

Prior to joining ERIC, she directed retirement policy initiatives at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, advocating to advance market-changing reforms such as the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA) and the Multiemployer Reform Act of 2014. More recently she testified before a Joint Select Congressional Committee on proposals to rescue failing collectively bargained retirement plans.

In her new role at ERIC, which represents the interests of employers with at least 10,000 employees and their human resource teams, Robinson will continue her focus on educating policy makers. But she'll have a broader, and in some cases, more specific portfolio of retirement issues on her desk.

“There's no doubt large employers can lead the way in the benefits space—you need someone to start the momentum,” Robinson told BenefitsPRO.

To assure the momentum created by passage of the PPA more than a decade ago can keep pace with evolving savings challenges, Robinson says Congress can start by acting on two major policy issues: passage of the Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act (RESA), and the Rehabilitation for Multiemployer Pensions Act.

From there the pipeline for reform—namely the question of how employers' benefits programs can be used to address the more than $1.5 trillion in student loan debt—can begin to flow more productively.

“Employers are looking at their benefits packages more comprehensively than ever,” said Robinson.

A growing focus on overall financial wellness is more than theory bandied in policy circles, suggested Robinson, but rather a tangible strategic initiative that the largest employers have little option to ignore.

“We know that employers want employees that are productive and doing their best possible work,” said Robinson. “The idea that people worrying about their financial health makes them less productive is real.”

Last August, a novel benefits program implemented by Abbot Laboratories initiated what many retirement advocates hope will generate a groundswell among larger employers.

Abbott's “Freedom 2 Save” program allows plan participants to earn the 5 percent match if they defer 2 percent of salary to service student loan debt, allowing workers to save for retirement even if they don't defer earnings to 401(k) accounts.

The Treasury Department rubberstamped the program in a private letter ruling. But benefits advocates and attorneys, including ERIC, almost universally said that further clarity from regulators or Congress was needed to assure other large employers could adopt similar programs.

Passing RESA, which would mark the largest policy shift for private sector retirement plans since ERISA was passed in the 1970s, would free up bandwidth for lawmakers to tackle the student loan issue in earnest.

Known for its bipartisan, bicameral support, RESA has already been introduced in the 116th Congress. Speculation is mounting that Congress will move. But that has happened before.

“There's a lot of impetus behind retirement issues and getting RESA across the finish line,” explained Robinson. “But politics is always as important as the policy.”

For her part, Robinson will continue ERIC's outreach, but after several near misses on RESA in the two previous Congresses, her optimism is cautious: “In my mind it's always 50-50 on passing.”

LIDA provision well intended but problematic for large sponsors

RESA is an exhaustive bill. It attempts to generate wider adoption of retirement plans among smaller employers by allowing Open Multiple Employer Plans. It addresses employers' reluctance to offer in-plan annuities with a more reasonable selection safe harbor.

It also includes the Lifetime Income Disclosure Act, which would require an annual estimated annuitized retirement income stream based on current 401(k) account savings.

The principle behind LIDA is straightforward: A hypothetical annuity estimate based on current savings habits could stimulate more savings where needed.

Advocates for LIDA include annuity providers and AARP. Mutual fund managers are more leery, fearing the provision inherently benefits insurance products.

But large plan sponsors' opposition to RESA's LIDA provision may be the most nuanced.

“A lot of large plan sponsors already provide more personalized income calculators in their plans,” said Robinson. LIDA's requirement may actually result in less efficient calculators, in effect neutering a plan design evolution that has organically emerged from the private sector.

“Congress could be making large plan sponsors take a few steps back from where they already are,” said Robinson. Furthermore, LIDA could result in the presumption that the estimated income stream is guaranteed by employers, raising the potential for participant confusion, and the prospect of sponsors' future liability, she added.

Large employers not fighting state plans, but call for reporting efficiency

Robinson, an attorney by trade, said ERIC will continue to track trends in fiduciary lawsuits brought against large plan sponsors, weighing in on specific cases through amicus briefs, and continuing to reach out to lawmakers and regulators.

“Employers want to make sure participants are protected,” she said, referencing the body of lawsuits that allege fiduciary breaches on past plan features based on current market conditions. “Employers have a fiduciary process to follow, but they can't predict the future. That's not their fiduciary duty.”

On state-administered IRA programs, ERIC's outreach has been direct. Last March, the Oregon Retirement Savings Board, which administers that state's auto-IRA program, settled a lawsuit brought by ERIC.

ERIC's lawsuit did not challenge states' rights to sponsor retirement plans—California's right to sponsor an auto-IRA program is being challenged in federal court by a taxpayer advocacy—but it did claim Oregon's reporting requirement for large employers was a breach of ERISA.

At issue in the Oregon case was large employers' potential reporting requirements to multiple state sponsors of retirement plans. ERISA, a federal law, has a preemption provision that protects qualifying plan sponsors from having to comply with different state regulations, argued ERIC in its lawsuit.

In settling the lawsuit, Oregon agreed to allow ERIC's members that operate in the state to simply inform the Retirement Savings Board that they are members of the trade organization.

How other states address large sponsor reporting requirement as more state plans are adopted will remain a core area of ERIC's focus, Robinson said.

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