In the fall of 2004 — nearly two years ago — the House Education and the Workforce Committee unveiled six principles to fix our nation’s outdated pension laws.

These pillars represented the foundation for the defined-benefit pension overhaul Congress was about to embark upon, and our committee pledged to incorporate each principle into the final legislative product we would send to President Bush.

Now, as the House-Senate conference readies a final blueprint, it is fitting to return to these six principles:

• Certainty. Establishing a permanent interest rate to calculate employers’ pension liabilities more accurately so that they fund their pension promises.

• Common sense. Enabling employers to build up a cushion in their pension plans during good economic times.

• Stability. Closing funding loopholes and ensuring that employers make adequate and consistent cash payments to their plans.

• Transparency. Giving employees timely and straightforward information about the health of their plans.

• Honesty. Ending the practice of allowing employers and union leaders, when faced with a severely underfunded pension plan, to dig their hole even deeper by promising extra benefits to employees and retirees.

• Portability. Ensuring that hybrid plans, such as cash-balance pensions, which offer portable, more generous worker benefits, remain a viable part of the defined-benefit system.

Fulfilling our commitment to these principles requires a conference report that is significantly stronger than current pension law. And though a final agreement has not yet been struck, I am confident we have taken major strides toward crafting a House-Senate agreement that will accomplish our goal.

During the remainder of the conference, we are likely to read a fair amount about how our final package stacks up against current law. Let me be clear: I am certain the pension reforms we send President Bush will be far stronger than current law in many key respects.

Here are just a few:

• Funding rules. Under current law, pension funding rules permit underfunded plans to make up their funding shortfalls over too long a period of time, putting workers at risk of having their plans terminate without adequate funding. The conference report we will send President Bush will ensure worker pensions are fully funded in a timely basis.

• Interest rate. The conference report we will send President Bush will provide a permanent interest rate for employers to calculate their pension contributions and more accurately measure current pension liabilities as they come due. Such a rate would provide greater certainty and clarity for employers and ensure that they put enough money away to fund the promises made to their workers.

• Credit balances. The credit-balance rules under current law contribute to plan underfunding, allowing employers with underfunded plans to replace cash contributions with credit balances accrued in previous years. This loophole allows underfunded plans to skip pension payments even if their plans are severely underfunded. The conference report we will send President Bush will restrict the use of credit balances.

• Smoothing. Under current law, interest rates used to calculate pension assets and liabilities are “smoothed,” or averaged, over five years for assets and four years for liabilities. Some have expressed concern that this is too long a period to smooth these rates, and the conference report we will send President Bush will reduce such smoothing, while also ensuring that employers can continue to budget for their pension contributions.

• Executive compensation. Under current law, executives of companies in financial difficulty often are given generous deferred-compensation arrangements while the retirement security of rank-and-file workers remains at risk. The conference report we will send President Bush will substantially restrict the funding of these “golden parachute” arrangements.

• Multiemployer plans. Multiemployer pension plans are defined-benefit plans maintained by two or more employers in a particular industry. The plans are collectively bargained between an employer and a labor union.

Workers and retirees who rely on multiemployer pensions are left vulnerable because of funding losses and outdated rules that need significant reform. The conference report we will send President Bush will include significant multiemployer reforms to ensure that the pension promises made to our workers are kept.

This pension-reform process — and this conference itself — has been a long haul, but we will send President Bush a pension-reform measure that strengthens pension plans on behalf of workers, retirees and taxpayers. And in the end, our proposal will reassure workers and retirees who rely on pension benefits, provide certainty for employers who offer them and protect taxpayers who could be called upon to fund a bailout of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

McKeon is chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.