Terrorism Risk Insurance Revision Act of 2005

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 467) to extend the applicability of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to

revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S. 467.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, in the aftermath of the brutal terrorist attacks on our Nation on September 11, 2001, America's economic and financial security was put at risk. Thousands of innocent people were victimized and our insurance industry was brought to its knees.

Insurers could not predict when or where or how damaging the next attack would be. As a result, the insurance markets pulled back and businesses were unable to obtain terrorism insurance at any price. Business development plans stalled and our economy was put at risk.

President Bush immediately called on Congress to pass legislation that would prevent severe economic disruptions caused by a lack of available terrorism insurance. The Financial Services Committee worked closely with the administration and the Senate to draft the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, or TRIA. TRIA provided a temporary Federal backstop to protect against future catastrophic terrorist attacks. This program, by any measure, has been a resounding success.

On June 30, 2005, the Treasury Department submitted a report to Congress on the effectiveness of the TRIA program, the availability and affordability of terrorism insurance for various policyholders, and the likely capacity of the property and causality insurance industry to offer insurance for terrorism risk after TRIA expires on December 31 of this year. According to the report, the removal of TRIA would result in ``less terrorism insurance written by insurers, higher prices, and lower policyholder take-up.''

The administration stated that it wanted to reform the TRIA program and foster the development of a private market for terrorism insurance.

The legislation before us today would temporarily extend the terrorism risk backstop for policyholders, but would also add a number of critical reforms. Perhaps most importantly, this bill is the only proposal providing significant taxpayer protections.

Unlike the current TRIA program which sets a limit on the amount of Federal assistance taxpayers may recoup, this legislation may have full 100 percent taxpayer payback. Every dollar the Federal Government pays out gets repaid over time. This bill also significantly increases industry co-shares, providing further taxpayer relief in the short run.

The bill raises the program trigger from $5 million to $50 million in the first year of the extension and then to $100 million for the second year. It also eliminates commercial automobile insurance from the terrorism insurance program, for a reduction of over $30 billion dollars in covered line premiums. The bill raises the deductibles on all lines of insurance from the current level of 15 percent to an average of over 20 percent, the biggest increase among all of the proposals.

The legislation encourages insurers to make coverage available for nuclear, biological, chemical and radioactive risk attacks, which are currently excluded from most insurance policies. Without these provisions, policyholders will continue to be unprotected for the most catastrophic of events.

Any Federal terrorism insurance program must be temporary. Because terrorism risk will not go away, one of our major goals must be to decrease the role of the Federal Government over time and provide real, lasting market reforms that will increase industry responsibility for terrorism insurance.

It is important that industry have more ``skin in the game'' to ease the transition to the private market for terrorism insurance. In addition to a raised trigger and deductibles, this bill is the only legislation that requires that development of a long-term solution shifting the backstop to the private sector and phasing out the Federal role.

A public-private entity is created and is required to issue specific proposals within a short period of time, and the bill sets up various risk-pooling mechanisms and dedicated terrorism capital accounts to immediately begin the transition. Without these provisions, we will be back here in 12 months arguing over another extension with no improved reforms.

This legislation is identical to the bill that passed our Financial Services Committee overwhelmingly by a vote of 64-3, with the exception of striking certain provisions that are within the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee by agreement, a slight change in the definition of exempt commercial purchasers, and other technical and conforming changes.

I applaud my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker), chairman of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises, for introducing this legislation.

I would also like to thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Price), the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson), the ranking member from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski), and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano) for their leadership and commitment to this important matter.

I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly), the chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price).

If the gentleman would yield, the gentleman has my assurances. I know we had some discussions in the committee, in the markup. Going forward, we have not been able to close that circle yet, but I see the

gentlewoman from Florida there nodding, and the gentleman has my assurances, as do all the other members of the committee, that we will address that issue. I think there were some drafting issues and the like that we will certainly take care of before the conference is concluded.

I thank the gentleman for his support.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield whatever time he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker), the chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 2 minutes to the

gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds).

(Mr. REYNOLDS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her inquiry, and clearly the committee on the point that she mentioned did not have hearings on the amendment offered, but I think it may be ripe for further exploration by the committee because the gentlewoman raises some interesting issues regarding foreign travel, particularly as it relates to life insurance policies.

I thank the gentlewoman for her interest and expertise.

Mr. Speaker, just in conclusion, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his kind words, and all the members on the committee who worked so hard on this, particularly Mr. Kanjorski and Mr. Frank on that side, and many, many others.

Mr. Speaker, when we had the hearing on this legislation with the Treasury Secretary after the Treasury report came out, I made the comment it would be irresponsible on the part of this Congress if we did not address the issue of terrorism risk insurance. It was far too important to ignore; it had too many implications for our economy going forward.

And Mr. Frank was right when he said this is not about the insurers. It is about the insured, the people out there creating jobs and making our economy work. And it is also a recognition that an act of terrorism is almost impossible to try to get actuarial information on to be able to set rates. It is virtually impossible. Anybody that knows anything about insurance knows that it is virtually impossible to work that in to any kind of an insurance scheme in which they would charge premiums. So that is why we needed this bottom-up, and that is why we need to continue this bottom-up.

And the idea is to transition during that period to a market-based solution, creating the incentive for insurance companies to create a pool, not unlike what the Brits have, the pool-rate concept, so you have this pool that could guard against losses. It is something that hopefully over the next year, as we finish this Congress, we can set the stage for that transition that will enable our economy to continue to grow and provide a robust insurance protection for those activities at the same time.

This is, in my estimate, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania pointed out, the legislative process at its best and I am very proud of the committee and the job that we have done. I ask for support of the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, 4 years ago, when the Congress considered the bill creating the terrorism insurance program, I urged my colleagues to reject it. One of the reasons I opposed the bill was my concern that, contrary to the claims of the bill's supporters, terrorism insurance would not be allowed to sunset after 3 years. As I said then:

The drafters of H.R. 3210 claim that this creates a

``temporary'' government program. However, Mr. Speaker, what

happens in 3 years if industry lobbyists come to Capitol Hill

to explain that there is still a need for this program

because of the continuing threat of terrorist attacks. Does

anyone seriously believe that Congress will refuse to

reauthorize this ``temporary'' insurance program or provide

some other form of taxpayer help to the insurance industry? I

would like to remind my colleagues that the Federal budget is

full of expenditures for long-lasting programs that were

originally intended to be ``temporary.''

I am disappointed to be proven correct. I am also skeptical that, having renewed the program once, Congress will ever allow it to expire, regardless of the recommendations made by the commission created by this bill.

As Congress considers extending this program, I renew my opposition to it for substantially the same reasons I stated 4 years ago. However, I do have a suggestion on how to improve the program. Since one claimed problem with allowing the private market to provide terrorism insurance is the difficulty of quantifying the risk of an attack, the taxpayers' liability under the terrorism reinsurance program should be reduced for an attack occurring when the country is under orange or red alert. After all, because the point of the alert system is to let Americans know when there is an increased likelihood of an attack it is reasonable to expect insurance companies to demand that their clients take extra precautionary measures during periods of high alert. Reducing taxpayer subsidies will provide an incentive to ensure private parties take every possible precaution to minimize the potential damage from possible terrorists attack.

While this bill does contain some provisions making it more favorable to taxpayers than the original program, my fundamental objections to the program remain the same as 4 years ago. Therefore, I am attaching my statement regarding H.R. 3210, which created the terrorist insurance program in the 107th Congress:

Mr. Speaker, no one doubts that the government has a role to play in compensating American citizens who are victimized by terrorist attacks. However, Congress should not lose sight of fundamental economic and constitutional principles when considering how best to provide the victims of terrorist attacks just compensation. I am afraid that H.R. 3210, the Terrorism Risk Protection Act, violates several of those principles and therefore passage of this bill is not in the best interests of the American people.

Under H.R. 3210, taxpayers are responsible for paying 90 percent of the costs of a terrorist incident when the total cost of that incident exceeds a certain threshold. While insurance companies technically are responsible under the bill for paying back monies received from the Treasury, the administrator of this program may defer repayment of the majority of the subsidy in order to ``avoid the likely insolvency of the commercial insurer,'' or avoid ``unreasonable economic disruption and market instability.'' This language may cause administrators to defer indefinitely the repayment of the loans, thus causing taxpayers to permanently bear the loss. This scenario is especially likely when one considers that ``avoid . . . likely insolvency, unreasonable economic disruption, and market instability'' are highly subjective standards, and that any administrator who attempts to enforce a strict repayment schedule likely will come under heavy political pressure to be more ``flexible'' in collecting debts owed to the taxpayers.

The drafters of H.R. 3210 claim that this creates a ``temporary'' government program. However, Mr. Speaker, what happens in 3 years if industry lobbyists come to Capitol Hill to explain that there is still a need for this program because of the continuing threat of terrorist attacks. Does anyone seriously believe that Congress will refuse to reauthorize this ``temporary'' insurance program or provide some other form of taxpayer help to the insurance industry? I would like to remind my colleagues that the Federal budget is full of expenditures for long- lasting programs that were originally intended to be ``temporary.''

H.R. 3210 compounds the danger to taxpayers because of what economists call the ``moral hazard'' problem. A moral hazard is created when individuals have the costs incurred from a risky action subsidized by a third party. In such a case individuals may engage in unnecessary risks or fail to take steps to minimize their risks. After all, if a third party will bear the costs of negative consequences of risky behavior, why should individuals invest their resources in avoiding or minimizing risk?

While no one can plan for terrorist attacks, individuals and businesses can take steps to enhance security. For example, I think we would all agree that industrial plants in the United States enjoy reasonably good security. They are protected not by the local police, but by owners putting up barbed wire fences, hiring guards with guns, and requiring identification cards to enter. One reason private firms put these security measures in place is because insurance companies provide them with incentives, in the form of lower premiums, to adopt security measures. H.R. 3210 contains no incentives for this private activity. The bill does not even recognize the important role insurance plays in providing incentives to minimize risks. By removing an incentive for private parties to avoid or at least mitigate the damage from a future terrorist attack, the government inadvertently increases the damage that will be inflicted by future attacks.

Instead of forcing taxpayers to subsidize the costs of terrorism insurance, Congress should consider creating a tax credit or deduction for premiums paid for terrorism insurance, as well as a deduction for claims and other costs borne by the insurance industry connected with offering terrorism insurance. A tax credit approach reduces government's control over the insurance market. Furthermore, since a tax credit approach encourages people to devote more of their own resources to terrorism insurance, the moral hazard problems associated with federally funded insurance is avoided.

The version of H.R. 3210 passed by the Financial Services committee took a good first step in this direction by repealing the tax penalty which prevents insurance companies from properly reserving funds for human-created catastrophes. I am disappointed that this sensible provision was removed from the final bill. Instead, H.R. 3210 instructs the Treasury Department to study the benefits of allowing insurers to establish tax-free reserves to cover losses from terrorist events. The perceived need to study the wisdom of cutting taxes while expanding the federal government without hesitation demonstrates much that is wrong with Washington.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3210 may reduce the risk to insurance companies from future losses, but it increases the costs incurred by American taxpayer. More significantly, by ignoring the moral hazard problem this bill may have the unintended consequence of increasing the losses suffered in any future terrorist attacks. Therefore, passage of this bill is not in the long-term interests of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hard work and the candor of the chairman of the committee. It really is disappointing. We did a good bipartisan effort here, put together a bill. There were some questions about it. It was a comprehensive bill and attacked a number of the issues.

What happened in the Senate was a travesty of the legislative process and a refusal finally by the chairman frankly of the committee to engage us at all. We are left with this Hobson's choice, in the literal sense, that is, no choice at all, that is, we have to pass this bill or else this program expires.

Unfortunately, a number of things were left out. We will hear from the gentlewoman from Florida about her important provision protecting people against unfair discrimination in their travel plans. One of the things that we

will also hear is from the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel). He worked hard with the families of 9/11.

Mr. Speaker, I will submit for the Record a packet of correspondence to and from the families. They wanted a commission to study this issue as part of this. They wanted representation. And the families of 9/11, after all, are the people out of whom this whole terrorism response grew, the victimization of their loved ones.

They asked for a commission. We in the House worked with them on a bipartisan basis. We have that commission. The Senate simply blatantly ignored them. And they tried. They appealed to the Senate and they appealed to the White House and they were turned away.

Group life is gone. This is kind of like, remember the old neutron bomb? It killed people and left the buildings standing. We have neutron terrorism insurance. It protects the buildings, but it ignores the people. It is both a travesty of the legislative process, what the Senate has done; and I have to say this, despite the fact that we got good bipartisan corporation here, and there were differences, we had differences where ideology got into play, but unfortunately there is a right wing ideological fundamentalism so entrenched in this Capitol in various places that that is why we do not have the kind of terrorism risk insurance bill we ought to have.

I believe in the market. I believe in the market's function, but we have people who believe in the market when it does not exist. And that is the case in terrorism insurance.

Families of September 11, Inc.,

New York, NY, November 3, 2005.

Hon. Michael G. Oxley,

Chair and Co-Sponsor of the House TRIA Bill, House of

Representatives, Committee on Financial Services, Rayburn

House Office Building, Washington, DC.

Hon. Richard Baker,

Co-Sponsor of the House TRIA Bill, House of Representatives,

Committee on Financial Services, Rayburn House Office

Building, Washington, DC.

Hon. Barney Frank

Ranking Democrat, House of Representatives, Committee on

Financial Services, Rayburn House Office Building,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representatives Oxley, Frank and Baker: The

undersigned is Chairman of the Board of Families of September

11, Inc. (FOS11). FOS11 is a nonprofit organization founded

in October 2001 by families of those who died in the

September 11 terrorist attacks. The FOS11 mission is to raise

awareness about the effects of terrorism and public trauma

and to champion domestic and international policies that

prevent, protect against, and respond to terrorist acts. Our

members (over 2,000) reside in 48 states and 20 countries.

Soon after its founding FOS11 began analyzing and

responding to issues raised by the Air Transportation Safety

and System Security Act (the Act), of which the September

11th Victims Compensation Fund of 2001 (the Fund) forms a

part, and subsequent legislation. In June of this year FOS11

submitted to the Justice Department its Final Report on the

Fund, an Executive Summary of which was placed in the

Congressional Record. In that report FOS11 expresses deep

concern about the wide swath of immunity granted by the Act

and subsequent legislation to public and private entities for

the consequences of the September 11 attacks. We observe that

the deterrent goals of our American compensation system--

imposing the cost of harmful acts on those who could and

should have, but did not, prevent them--were not achieved.

Nor could they have been. The reason. The insurance industry

had not (understandably) appreciated and analyzed the

terrorist exploitable vulnerabilities of its insureds and the

magnitude of the exposures and built the reserves and

provided the limits necessary to pay the losses that

resulted.

The FOS11 Final Report on the Fund concludes by urging

Congress to:

a. use the perspectives of time and experience in

implementation of the Victim Compensation Fund to consider

carefully issues it was forced to address hastily in the

immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11,

2001;

b. assess how well the rules adopted in 2002 to implement

the legislation met Congressional intent;

c. consider the incentives and disincentives to reducing

the risks of terrorist attacks implicit in the legislation;

and

d. fashion legislation that will reduce those risks and

ensure that victims of future terrorist attacks and their

families are made whole.

Although FOS11 believes that the Terrorism Risk Insurance

Act (TRIA) is not the long term solution to deterring and, if

deterrence fails, paying for future terrorist losses, it does

believe that it is a necessary bridge to comprehensive

forward looking legislation that will allow the insurance

industry to play the vital role of providing remedies to the

casualties of future terrorist attacks and, through risk

assessments and premium allocations, a safer America.

FOS11 joins the Defense Research Institute in its support

of legislation that (1) extends TRIA until December 31, 2007,

to ensure an orderly transition to a long term solution to

the terrorism risk insurance questions and (2) provides for a

Presidential Working Group or Congressional Commission to

develop a viable and solvent program to succeed TRIA.

The unique perspective of FOS11 equips it well to

participate in the creation of solutions to the complex

accountability, responsibility, remedies and related

prevention issues raised by the continuing threat of

terrorist acts and the vital role insurance can (must) play

in these solutions. We ask that FOS11 be a participant in

this crucial debate.

Very truly yours,

Donald W. Goodrich,

Chairman of the Board.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the

Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate bill (S. 467) to extend the applicability of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material thereon.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, on the morning of September 11, 2001, this Nation suffered a series of brutal terrorist attacks. Al Qaeda's terrorists murdered thousands of innocent Americans, caused billions of dollars in damage and placed our financial markets in jeopardy. While the marketplace was ultimately able to survive the more than $30 billion loss, insurance reserves were demolished and solvency was put at risk. Insurers could not predict when another terrorist attack would take place or how damaging the next attack could be and were forced to begin to exclude terrorism coverage from commercial policies, leaving policyholders bare. The resulting lack of terrorism insurance put at risk numerous development projects and threatened our Nation's economy.

To respond to this crisis, the House Financial Services Committee immediately created the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, or TRIA. A year later, the Senate finally acted and the President signed TRIA into law.

TRIA has provided a Federal backstop protecting policyholders against future catastrophic terrorist attacks. TRIA has been a resounding success in ensuring the availability of terrorism coverage for commercial policyholders.

TRIA is set to expire at the end of the year. Unfortunately, the risks from terrorism remain acute and the private markets cannot function without an appropriate government backstop. The legislation before us today, S. 467, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act, temporarily extends the terrorism risk backstop for 2 years, while increasing participation of the private sector.

As in our committee legislation, this bill raises the program trigger from $5 million to $50 million in the first year of the extension and then to $100 million for the second year, ensuring that

Federal participation will only happen for large-scale attacks.

It also increases the insurer deductibles by a reasonable amount each year and significantly increases the taxpayer payback to better protect consumers.

Mr. Speaker, it is with some frustration and sadness when I say that Members of Congress and the administration who believe that the risk of terrorism will disappear in 2 years are fooling themselves. It is my firm belief that a TRIA extension should have included some actual reforms to reinvigorate the private sector and replace our Federal program with a permanent private sector solution.

While this legislation is bereft of any reforms to build long-term protections for commercial policyholders, I am confident Congress will be forced to return to this issue before 2 years have expired. It is a sad commentary on our ability to look forward and to be creative, which I think the House legislation clearly did. It is unfortunate that our brethren in the other body saw fit to take such a narrow attitude.

I hope that the Presidential working group that is created by this legislation will examine the need to create dedicated, long-term terrorism reserves and private pooling and risk-sharing facilities to permanently protect our Nation from the economic threat of terrorism.

If such forward thinking and planning is not done as contemplated in our bill, the industry will be back at the Federal trough seeking yet another extension of this program; and make no mistake about it, whatever it is, Congress will respond.

We should give special recognition to the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker), for introducing legislation developing a long-term private sector reform to strengthen the private- public sector partnership, to improve terrorism insurance for consumers.

I also applaud my colleagues Mrs. Kelly, Mr. Sessions, Ms. Pryce, Mr. Davis, Mr. Fossella, Mr. Renzi, and Mr. Ferguson for their help and leadership, as well as Ranking Member Frank, Mr. Kanjorski, and Mr. Capuano for their bipartisanship cooperation and commitment to protecting our Nation.

Their leadership is proof that the House can work together to get things done for America. Too bad we did not have better cooperation from the other side. I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this important and necessary legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly), who has been one of the leaders on very important issues and chairs the oversight subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer), a valuable member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I just want to say, and a lot of us have intimated this, we could do better than this that we have before us today. We did better in the House version, and I think all of our committee members know that, and I think most of the Members of the House know that. But there is a time to hold them and a time to fold them.

At this point, I would ask that the House do adopt this conference report.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski), is on his way over. He has taken the lead for us on this bill.

I would just ask at this point unanimous consent for me to turn over to him the management of our time when he arrives.

Mr. Speaker, this is a bill to which my response is, ``Better late than never.'' I wish we would have done this earlier. We have known for some time the deadline was coming. I appreciate the efforts of the chairman of the committee to get the attention of the House to this bill. We passed it in committee some time ago before the break. It frankly could have come to the floor before that.

I say that because I am pleased with this bill in general. I think it is useful that we are producing it. And there are differences between this bill and the one passed by the Senate, and we do need some time to work them out.

None of them is of enormous difficulty, it seems to me, they all have a similar capacity, but it would have been better if we had done this earlier.

Having said that, I want to stress what is so important about this bill to me, and it is it establishes or maintains the principle that we will try to minimize the extent to which terrorists influence decisions that we make here in America. I do not regard this as a favor to the insurance companies. Frankly, terrorism insurance would, I believe, not exist if it were not for this bill or, if it did exist, it would be at very high premiums. The insurance industry would have the option either of walking away from offering this or of charging high premiums. I do not think the insurance industry would be greatly disadvantaged.

The losers, if we do not reenact terrorism risk insurance, are people who want to build and particularly in those cities that are seen as potential targets of terrorism. We have been told by people who want to do large commercial buildings, very important to the big cities of this country, to the areas that would be the targets of terrorism, that they would not be able to get loans that are necessary obviously to build if they are not fully insured. Lenders are telling us, yes, we cannot now lend large amounts of money, tens, hundreds of millions of dollars to a building that might be at risk from terrorism and be uninsured against that risk.

I think we ought to have a responsible insurance system so that where we can minimize risk we can give people an incentive to be responsible in dealing with them. I do not think it is

good public policy to say to people who want to build in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles or here in Washington, D.C., There are terrorists out there and they want to blow things up and you will bear that financial responsibility; that is up to you. That is unfair to the cities, and it gives the terrorists leverage over our economy.

So this is a bill which, in my mind, is not for benefit of the insurers but for the insured, and it is for the benefit of the insured so that we can go forward with the development of our economy.

Indeed, there is one issue here regarding the World Trade Center that we have not yet fully resolved, and I appreciate the chairman showing some interest in this. We were asked, both of us, by Members from the New York area about some provisions to deal with the possibility that the World Trade Center reconstruction will take too long. Frankly, those in charge in New York did not come to us until very late in the process, and it was not possible to accommodate something of that complexity now. I hope we do not rule it out for the future, but if they had come to us earlier, we might have been able to deal with it somewhat differently, but that illustrates the point.

This is a bill to make sure that economic activity in our biggest cities can go on uninterrupted, and the alternative is to let the terrorists put a terrorist tax on building large buildings in our big cities, and we should not allow that.

Let me just say, finally, I want to acknowledge, and my friend from Pennsylvania is here and will be taking this over, but this has been a cooperative effort with the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley). The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano) has done a lot.

Last point. Some of the consumer groups have raised what I think are misguided objections here. I do not see that this, in any way, impinges on the consumers negatively, but thanks to the gentlewoman from Florida, who will be speaking later, it has a very important proconsumer piece, and I appreciate the chairman's agreeing to add it, that protects Americans from arbitrary treatment if they are traveling to certain parts of the world.

So I am very supportive of this, and I would now turn over the management of the time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.