Two Texas GOP lawmakers are seeking to replace the windfall elimination provision.

WEP slashes the Social Security retirement benefits that can be received by most individuals who collect a pension from a job that was not covered by the program, using a rather blunt formula that does not change until a person exceeds 20 years of work under Social Security. The Public Servant Retirement Protection Act - sponsored in the House by Rep. Kevin Brady and in the Senate by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison - would replace WEP with a formula that adjusts Social Security retirement benefits for public employees in a way that would reflect their level of participation in the program and, according to congressional aides, would tend to be more generous to retirees who are now affected by WEP.

An identical bill received a hearing in the last Congress by the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee. While several public employee representatives spoke in favor of the bill, Martin Gerry, a deputy commissioner with the Social Security Administration, detailed the difficulties of recomputing benefits, estimating that it would take $190 million and 2,600 work years – that is, the equivalent of 2,600 people working full-time for one year – to sort out all the numbers for all the affected workers. The bill's price tag, which would reach about $7 billion over 10 years, is also a likely hindrance to passage.