Enron's Debacle Prompts Congress, Employers to Review Retirement Plans.

Byline: Loretta Kalb

Feb. 11--Your 401(k) plan, that most popular tool for tax-deferred retirement savings, may never be the same.

Galvanized by retirement losses by thousands of Enron workers, Congress is contemplating changes in how such plans operate. President Bush has weighed in with his own proposal to protect workers' retirements.

And employers across the country are evaluating whether their 401(k) plans truly serve employees' best interests.

The results of these efforts could affect millions of workers.

Of the 340,000 companies nationwide offering 401(k) plans, only about 2,000 match employee contributions with their own shares, as was the case at Enron.

But these employers tend to be among the larger publicly traded companies in America, according to a recent survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute and, combined, employ millions of workers.

Those large companies "obviously are looking at this issue in terms of potential fiduciary liability," said Steve Blakely, an…