Employee Benefit Plans

Retirement Plans. We have a qualified non-contributory defined benefit (DB) retirement plan for U.S. employees and non-qualified, non-contributory, unfunded defined benefit plans which cover certain current and former U.S. executives. Our Westcoast subsidiary maintains qualified and non-qualified, contributory and non-contributory, DB and defined contribution (DC) retirement plans covering substantially all employees of our Canadian operations.

Our policy is to fund our retirement plans, where applicable, on an actuarial basis to provide assets sufficient to meet benefits to be paid to plan participants or as required by legislation or plan terms. We made contributions of $16 million to our U.S. retirement plans in both of the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015. We made total contributions to the Canadian DC and DB plans of $20 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and $23 million in the same period in 2015. We anticipate that we will make total contributions of approximately $22 million to the U.S. plans and approximately $26 million to the Canadian plans in 2016.

Qualified and Non-Qualified Pension Plans—Components of Net Periodic Pension Cost



	Three Months Ended September 30,						Nine Months Ended September 30,
	2016			2015			2016			2015
	(in millions)
U.S.
Service cost benefit earned	$	4		$	4		$	14		$	14
Interest cost on projected benefit obligation	7			6			19			18
Expected return on plan assets	(9		)	(10		)	(29		)	(31		)
Amortization of loss	1			2			5			7
Net periodic pension cost	$	3		$	2		$	9		$	8

Canada
Service cost benefit earned	$	8		$	8		$	23		$	24
Interest cost on projected benefit obligation	10			11			32			33
Expected return on plan assets	(16		)	(16		)	(48		)	(50		)
Amortization of loss	5			6			14			19
Amortization of prior service cost	—			—			1			1
Net periodic pension cost	$	7		$	9		$	22		$	27

Other Post-Retirement Benefit Plans. We provide certain health care and life insurance benefits for retired employees on a contributory and non-contributory basis. Employees are eligible for these benefits if they have met age and service requirements at retirement, as defined in the plans.

Other Post-Retirement Benefit Plans—Components of Net Periodic Benefit Cost



	Three Months Ended September 30,						Nine Months Ended September 30,
	2016			2015			2016			2015
	(in millions)
U.S.
Service cost benefit earned	$	—		$	1		$	—		$	1
Interest cost on accumulated post-retirement benefit obligation	2			1			6			5
Expected return on plan assets	(2		)	(1		)	(4		)	(4		)
Net periodic other post-retirement benefit cost	$	—		$	1		$	2		$	2

Canada
Service cost benefit earned	$	1		$	1		$	2		$	3
Interest cost on accumulated post-retirement benefit obligation	1			1			3			3
Net periodic other post-retirement benefit cost	$	2		$	2		$	5		$	6

Retirement/Savings Plan. In addition to the retirement plans described above, we also have defined contribution employee savings plans available to both U.S. and Canadian employees. Employees may participate in a matching contribution where we match a certain percentage of before-tax employee contributions of up to 6% of eligible pay per pay period for U.S. employees and up to 5% of eligible pay per pay period for Canadian employees. We expensed pre-tax employer matching contributions of $4 million in both of the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, and $11 million in both of the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015 for U.S. employees. We expensed pre-tax employer matching contributions of $3 million and $2 million in the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, respectively, and $9 million and $8 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, respectively, for Canadian employees.