Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is pressing the Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) to re-open the dialogue EBSA started with industry trade groups regarding its data request on its fiduciary re-proposal so that both parties can "design an informative but achievable data request."
"While I am glad that EBSA is seeking hard data to inform its rulemaking, I am worried that the EBSA and the industry do not seem to have a constructive relationship," McCaskill told EBSA head Phyllis Borzi in a April 23 letter.
McCaskill told Borzi that industry trade groups have told her that EBSA has "rebuffed their offers for a continued dialogue." The stakeholders, she told Borzi, have "confirmed that they are ready to work with the EBSA to design information request to provide data that will meet the EBSA's needs without unjustifiable cost of undue administrative burden," McCaskill wrote.
An EBSA spokerperson told AdvisorOne that Borzi (left) has received the McCaskill letter and that EBSA "will be responding" to the Senator. However, the spokesperson would not comment on whether EBSA had rebuffed industry groups' attempts to re-open the dialogue.
