Daniel Aronowitz testified Thursday at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing. Credit: Senate HELP
Members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted 14-9 Thursday to advance the nomination of Daniel Aronowitz to be the assistant Labor secretary in charge of the U.S. Labor Department's Employee Benefits Security Administration.
As EBSA administrator, Aronowitz would be the top federal official with a focus on employer-sponsored health plans, employer-sponsored retirement plans and other employer-sponsored benefit plans.
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Republicans control the Senate and the Senate HELP Committee. The committee approved several other Labor Department nominations without the nominees receiving any votes from Democrats.
Two Democrats — John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Time Kaine of Virginia — joined with Republicans to vote for the Aronowitz nomination, according to the National Association of Plan Advisors.
At press time, it was not yet known when the Aronowitz nomination would move to the Senate floor.
The U.S. Office of Government Ethics had not yet posted the Aronowitz nominee disclosure form on its website.
Aronowitz is a longtime labor lawyer who has served in the past as president of an Ullico subsidiary, Ullico Casualty.
In recent years, has been the head of Encore Fiduciary, a company that sells liability insurance and related products and services to benefit plan fiduciaries.
Related: Trump picks ERISA fiduciary liability law expert to lead DOL's benefits unit
In 2011, Aronowitz donated his kidney to Nancy Hodges Bush, his wife's mother. Bush went on to live 13 more years.
At a hearing earlier this month, Aronowitz said he was interested in supporting employee stock ownership plans, promoting broader employer access to association health plans and addressing mental health parity concerns.
James Bonham, president of the ESOP Association, who represents employee ownership of companies, welcomed the Senate HELP vote for Aronowitz.
"He has pledged to end the regulatory bias against ESOPs while safeguarding the interests of the 14 million ESOP participants in the U.S., and we hope he is quickly confirmed by the Senate," Bonham said.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
