President Obama will seek to broaden retirement plan coverage for small-employer and part-time workers, the White House announced in a press release issued Tuesday morning.

The statement also detailed plans for the first time to expand the portability of pensions the president announced in his State of the Union address last week.

However, many, if not all, of the proposals would require Congressional approval, which is highly unlikely in an election year when the opposition party controls both the House and the Senate.

Citing the need for action, the White House pointed out more than half of workers in companies with fewer than 50 employees and more than three-quarters of part-time workers do not have access to retirement savings plans on the job.

The president’s package would make workplace retirement savings options available to more than 30 million Americans for the first time.

To increase the number of workers at small firms preparing for retirement, the president wants to open the cost-savings and economies of scale of multiple-employer plans by eliminating the requirement that firms participating in them share “a common bond.”

As part of this arrangement, multiple-employer plans would be allowed to offer coverage for contractors and self-employed individuals.

To further the president’s goal of increased portability of pensions, workers moving from one employer in a plan to another employer in the same plan could continue participating unimpaired.

Much of what the president wants Congress to do he has requested before, but the pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Among the if-at-first-you-don’t-succeed-try-try-again initiatives are those to get Congress to mandate employers to give access to their retirement plans to individual part-time employees who have worked at least 500 hours per year for three years or more.

The president also is preparing to ask Congress again to expand tax breaks to encourage more small employers to offer retirement plans and to require employers with more than 10 employees that do not currently offer a retirement plan to automatically enroll their workers in an IRA.

In the statement, the White House said the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation will be issuing a proposal to help locate missing workers from terminated defined contribution plans and help them obtain their benefits.

The package of retirement savings proposals will be presented in greater detail when the president releases his proposed budget for the 2017 federal fiscal year, which runs from October 1, 2016, to September 30, 2017.