How can a company freeze your defined benefit pension plan?

My pension plan is frozen and I have 15 years before I can retire. The money in the account is not accruing It is just sitting there. How can they do that? I can't take my money out and put it somewhere else. So for the next 15 years I have money sitting and not making anything on it.
Looking to lower costs and reduce future funding obligations, many U.S. companies are taking a hard look at the retirement plans they offer to their employees. The harshest scrutiny is being focused on defined-benefit pension plans, which usually reward employees for years of service with a guaranteed monthly retirement benefit. Many employers are deciding that their traditional pension plans are simply too expensive to maintain, and the result is that they are freezing these plans. (To find out more about these plans, see The Demise Of The Defined-Benefit Plan.) For employees - particularly those close to retirement - who spent a number of years with the same employer, a frozen pension plan deal a severe blow to their post-work plans. The guaranteed income they had been anticipating upon reaching retirement age could be reduced significantly as a result of a pension freeze, which may force them to rely on the uncertainties of a 401(k) or some other type of defined-contribution plan. This is the prospect facing millions of employees at companies like Verizon, IBM, Sears and Hewlett-Packard, which are some of the employers that have frozen their defined-benefit plans in 2006. What started as a trickle has picked up speed and is expected to accelerate further with the new Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA). (To learn more about the PPA, read Pension Law Could Reduce Your Payout, Pension Protection Act Of 2006 Becomes Law and The Pension Bill: A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing.) What is a frozen pension plan? A frozen pension plan is one that has been amended to discontinue benefit accruals under the plan, although the assets remain in the plan. Certain administrative requirements must continue for a frozen plan, including ensuring that the plan satisfies minimum funding standards. Generally, there are two types of frozen pension plans, a hard freeze and a soft freeze. A "soft freeze" is when benefit accruals that are determined based on years of service are discontinued. This means that years of service after the effective date of the freeze are not factored into determining an employee's benefits under the plan. However, benefits continue to accrue based on increases in covered participants' compensation. An alternative version of the soft freeze is to freeze out a certain class of employees or new participants. Under a "hard freeze", employees will receive the benefits already accrued, but no new benefits are accrued after the date the plan is frozen. Thus, if a worker has spent 20 years with a company and plans to stay for an additional five years until retirement, no pension benefits are accrued during those last five years. Further, no new participants are allowed to participate in the plan. Most companies that freeze pension plans either introduce a 401(k) plan or other defined contribution plan, or enhance an existing plan. Freeze Vs. Termination A pension freeze is different from a pension termination. In a termination, a company must pay out all benefits as soon as administratively feasible, usually no longer than one year after the termination date. Distributions can be made as a lump sum, if permitted under the plan, or by buying employees an annuity that pays benefits over time. Companies in bankruptcy may transfer their pension liabilities to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), a federal government agency that insures pension plans. (For more on the PBGC, see The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation Rescues Plans and Lump Sum Versus Regular Pension Payments.) Pension Protection Act of 2006 The Pension Protection Act, as its name implies, was meant to help ensure the financial viability of pension plans following high-profile plan terminations at several airline, steel and other companies. A few of the PPA's provisions, however, have resulted in many businesses either shying away from adopting new defined-benefit plans, or terminating/freezing those that were being maintained. Signed by President Bush in August 2006, the PPA runs more than 900 pages and includes a number of provisions related to retirement plans. These include provisions that allow companies to enroll employees automatically in 401(k) plans, provide investment advice to employees and establish default investment elections. These are viewed as some of the positive provisions. The negative provisions include those that seem to encourage companies to consider freezing or terminating their pension plans. PPA sets much stricter standards for ensuring companies set aside enough capital to fully fund their pension obligations. In particular, PPA gives most pension plans seven years - beginning in 2008 - to make sure their plans are 100% funded. For employers that fail to meet this funding obligation, a 10% excise tax may be levied on the company if the deficiency is not corrected in time. For many companies, this will mean they must accelerate their contributions. While these employers are perm