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The Consumer Impact of Enron's Influence on State Pension Funds Hearing Committee on Commerce, Science, and T S. HRG. 107–1140 EXAMINING ENRON: THE CONSUMER IMPACT OF ENRON’S INFLUENCE ON STATE PENSION FUNDS HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOREIGN COMMERCE AND TOURISM OF THE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION MAY 16, 2002 Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation ( U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 94–690 PDF WASHINGTON : 2005 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:42 Sep 27, 2005 Jkt 094690 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\94690.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina, Chairman DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia TED STEVENS, Alaska JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts CONRAD BURNS, Montana JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana TRENT LOTT, Mississippi BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas RON WYDEN, Oregon OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine MAX CLELAND, Georgia SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas BARBARA BOXER, California GORDON SMITH, Oregon JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada BILL NELSON, Florida GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia KEVIN D. KAYES, Democratic Staff Director MOSES BOYD, Democratic Chief Counsel JEANNE BUMPUS, Republican Staff Director and General Counsel SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOREIGN COMMERCE AND TOURISM BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota, Chairman JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois RON WYDEN, Oregon CONRAD BURNS, Montana BARBARA BOXER, California SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina GORDON SMITH, Oregon JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada BILL NELSON, Florida GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia (II) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:42 Sep 27, 2005 Jkt 094690 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\94690.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF C O N T E N T S Page Hearing held on May 16, 2002 ............................................................................... 1 Statement of Senator Dorgan ................................................................................. 1 Statement of Senator Nelson .................................................................................. 2 WITNESSES Calvert, Bruce W., Chairman and CEO, Alliance Capital Management ............ 7 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 10 Glassman, James K., Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute .............. 21 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 24 Harrison, Alfred, Vice Chairman, Alliance Capital Management ....................... 13 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 15 Herndon, Tom, Executive Director, Florida State Board of Administration; Accompanied by C. Coleman Stipanovich, Deputy Executive Director, Flor- ida State Board of Administration; and Trent Webster, Portfolio Manager, Florida State Board of Administration ............................................................... 3 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 6 Musuraca, Michael, Assistant Director, Department of Research and Negotia- tions, District Council 37, American Federation of State, County, and Mu- nicipal Employees (AFSCME) ............................................................................. 59 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 61 Plunkett, Travis, Legislative Director, Consumer Federation of America .......... 64 Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 66 Teslik, Sarah Ball, Executive Director, Council of Institutional Investors, prepared statement .............................................................................................. 55 (III) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:42 Sep 27, 2005 Jkt 094690 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\94690.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF VerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:42 Sep 27, 2005 Jkt 094690 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\94690.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF EXAMINING ENRON: THE CONSUMER IMPACT OF ENRON’S INFLUENCE ON STATE PENSION FUNDS THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2002, U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOREIGN COMMERCE AND TOURISM, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m. in room SR–253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Byron L. Dorgan, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON L. DORGAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA Senator DORGAN. This hearing will come to order. I’ll be joined momentarily by my colleagues, Senator Nelson—I believe Senator Boxer will join us as well. But in light of the hour, I want to pro- ceed. I will necessarily have to absent myself for a leadership meeting, at which time Senator Nelson will take the chair, in about 40 min- utes, but—Senator Nelson has just joined us, as you see. This hearing is a continuation of a number of hearings that we have been holding discussing issues that surround the Enron Cor- poration. This hearing is at the request of my colleague from Flor- ida, Senator Nelson, who, quite properly, wants an explanation about how the pension fund of Florida lost some $329 million in Enron’s stock issues, more than any other public pension fund in the country, I understand. This is a long and tortured subject. We began hearings dealing with Enron matters in—last December, I believe it was, and we’ll continue to hold some hearings into June. One of the issues that has arisen is the purchase of Enron stock, even as the Enron stock was collapsing, and the cost of those purchases to the Florida pen- sion fund and other pension funds around the country, but the largest purchase, I think, and the biggest loss was to the Florida public employee’s pension fund. Let me say that I don’t have any preconceived notions or judg- ments about today’s hearings. We’re trying to understand and learn from the hearings. And I agree with my colleagues that Flor- ida’s public employees deserve to try to get some answers, and my hope is that this hearing will shed some light on some of these vex- ing and troubling issues. (1) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:42 Sep 27, 2005 Jkt 094690 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\94690.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF 2 Let me call on my colleague, Senator Nelson. STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON, U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, what we would like to accom- plish here as we have responsibility for crafting legislation to try to protect the public for the future, and here we have—the public has been harmed in the course of this whole saga, because public servants in investing their funds in a public retirement fund, those funds having severely diminished under conditions that we’re going to explore. In Florida’s case, taxpayers were not harmed because the Florida retirement system was, in fact, fully funded. But it was only a few years ago that the retirement fund was not fully funded, and, had the same circumstances occurred, the losses would be being borne by taxpayers not by the pensioners of the state of Flor- ida. So that adds another dimension that is considerably important for us as we are examining what is the legislative solution to this. So what we want to do is to get to the bottom of this and to pre- vent it from happening again by virtue of coming forth with legisla- tion that would make it a lot less likely that this kind of scenario would occur again. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator DORGAN. Senator Nelson, thank you. And the long-term goal, of course, is for us to evaluate what we’re learning form this scandal. And, yes, the Enron matter is a scandal involving, in my judgment, substantial dishonesty and grand theft, in some cases. Yesterday, for 4 hours, we heard of price fixing in California, which I expect will be the subject of a substantial criminal inves- tigation. It appears to be not just the Enron Corporation, but they were neck deep in it. And so this issue has many tentacles, one of which deals with the losses to pension funds. And the question is: How do we legislate, or do we legislate, in ways that can provide some protection that this sort of thing will not happen again? We have a number of witnesses today. I indicated, Senator Nel- son, that I will not be able to stay for the entire hearing, but you will be chairing when I have to depart. Mr. Glassman, welcome. Mr. GLASSMAN. Thank you. Senator DORGAN. Is that Dow still going to hit $30,000? Didn’t you have a book—all right, then one of these days I’m going to start buying again then. I don’t have a lot of money to buy with, but we’ll consult privately, I guess, about that. It’s nice to see you again. I haven’t seen you for some while. Others of you on the panel, thank you for being with us. I would like to begin by asking Mr. Tom Herndon, from the Florida State Board of Administrators, the executive director. He will give testi- mony. And I believe two of his colleagues are here, as well, to
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