Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4299) to extend the Terrorism Insurance Program of the Department of the Treasury, and for other purposes.

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

Members of the body, first let me address the practicalities of where we are. I am going to talk about the policies in a few minutes after others have had an opportunity to speak, but let's just talk about where we are.

The chairman has talked about the Senate this, the House this. But the truth is that the present legislation expires December 31. That is in 19 days. Businesses across the country are trying to arrange their insurance coverages for next year, and they have no certainty as to whether or how much there will be a Federal safety net in place. Nineteen days.

Even if Congress were to act today, there is hardly time enough for insurance companies to develop new policy forms, to obtain approval from 50 State regulators, to get them in the marketplace for review by the brokers, and to finish negotiating coverage with their policyholders. There is just not time.

Now, it can be the Senate problem. The House passed a bill earlier this year. That is all true, but that doesn't change the facts. Nineteen days. Nineteen days. Each additional day that we fail to get a bill on the President's desk means less ability in the marketplace to adjust and to respond to the new mandates in this program, or the Senate program, particularly the mandates on domestic terrorism. Policies are going to have to be rewritten. And both the House and the Senate bill does that, so it doesn't really matter which bill ultimately passes.

Mr. Speaker, I share Chairman Frank's frustration with the Senate. He described this ping pong, back and forth. A House-Senate conference would have been nice to work out our differences, although in a minute I will say why I personally believe the Senate bill is more in keeping with our original intention. The chairman of the full committee and I were two of the authors of the original legislation. And it says in that legislation it was intended as a very temporary Federal backstop until the private market could fill in, and I will talk about that and why I support the Senate bill later.

But as a practical matter, whether I supported the Senate or the House bill, there is only one bill that is going to pass. I think the chairman knows that, I know that, Members of this body know that. That's the Senate bill.

The administration has indicated they are going to veto anything but the Senate bill. If we pass this bill, they will veto it. The Senate has agreed unanimously to their bill. They came together unanimously. I regret we weren't able to do that. But it was, at that time, a 15-year permanent bill. So we didn't come together. But we have got to put this behind us and adopt legislation that has a realistic possibility of becoming law, and to do it right now. We need to do that on the alternate minimum tax. It is staring us in the face.

I don't think the American people, the taxpayers, I don't think the accounting industry care whether or not the Senate did this to the House or the

House did this to the Senate. On terrorist insurance, I don't think the insurance companies, the developers, the policyholders, I am not sure they care about all the internal fights between this body and that body. They are caught in the middle, and you do have a bill available. It's a Senate bill that will go to the President to be signed and take away this uncertainty.

The Senate has made it clear that they are not going to pass the legislation that the chairman is offering. It is not me; that is the Senate. The White House has issued a Statement of Administrative Policy indicating that if presented with the bill we are going to vote on today, the President will veto it. That's with less. The Senate is not going to take it up, so it won't ever get to the President. So that is just theoretical because the Senate said they are not going to pass it. And we have got 3 weeks left before the program expires.

Now, some of our Members think that the private market, that the TRIA 5 years after 9/11, a 3-year bill and a 2-year extension, that TRIA has served its purpose. And in a few minutes I am going to talk about the Treasury and that they believe that it has fulfilled its purpose and from now on it just retards the private market.

But we can vote this bill down, we can bring up the Senate bill, and we can put a bipartisan TRIA extension on the President's desk. We can do it this week. The time for further deliberation or argument has passed. Time has run out on us.

With all due respect to the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, I recommend we vote down this legislation, we bring up the Senate legislation, we do it in a motion to recommit, we do it in a unanimous consent, we do it in a suspension. We move it, we pass it over to the Senate, and we end the uncertainty.

If it is such a vital program that many Members think it is, why don't we need it in place? Why would we wait until a week or two or even after it expires to reauthorize it?

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

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

Mr. Speaker, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, TRIA, provides a free Federal backstop to private insurers to protect them against acts of terrorism in the United States so they can have insurance. It was enacted, as all of us recall, right after 9/11 for 3 years as a very temporary measure. It was intended to give the insurance industry developers a 3-year period of transition to a private market, allow them to stabilize, to price terrorism insurance, and the third goal was to rebuild capacity.

Now, in 2005, Republicans agreed. We came together bipartisanly and extended it for 2 years. However, that same year, the Treasury did a study on TRIA, and here's what they said. They said, by 2005, 2 years ago, the program had achieved all its purposes. The insurance market had stabilized. They were pricing terrorism insurance, and they were rebuilding capacity.

I will submit for the Record the Treasury Department study that they found had achieved all its goals. Now, let me read from the Treasury study of 2 years ago: ``The availability and affordability of terrorism risk insurance has improved since the terrorist attacks of September 11. Despite increases in risk retentions under TRIA, insurers have allocated additional capacity to terrorism risk, prices have declined, and take-up (purchase) rates have increased.'' But we extended it.

And then we passed the legislation that the chairman has talked about today, and it went over to the Senate. And the Senate, unanimously, passed a TRIA bill. One hundred Republicans and Democrats came together and passed that legislation, and the President said he would sign it.

Now, there are things about this bill that some of my colleagues on this side support. The gentlelady from Florida has a provision that I think would be beneficial. But it deals with group life. I'm sure she's going to talk about that provision in a minute.

But let me say this. The Senate has said they're not going to include group life. So why put a provision in about group life when the Senate has already said they're not going to include group life?

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Well, as I said a few minutes ago to the chairman, with all respect to the chairman, we have 19 days. We've talked about the importance, particularly on that side of the aisle, and many Members on our side, the importance, if we are going to have a bill, let's have a bill. If the program is important, let's have the program. Let's not let it expire.

If terrorist risk insurance will shut down New York, if in the absence of this bill you can't build a hotdog stand in New York, why would we let a bill expire that will, quote, shut down the economy of New York? We have an alternative. The alternative is to pass a bill that passed unanimously in the Senate.

Executive Summary

The Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act of 2005 requires

the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) to

perform an analysis regarding the long-term availability and

affordability of insurance for terrorism risk, including

group life coverage; and coverage for chemical, nuclear,

biological, and radiological events; and to submit a report

of its findings to Congress by September 30, 2006.

In conducting this analysis, the PWG was assisted by staff

of the member agencies who reviewed academic and industry

studies on terrorism risk insurance, and sought additional

information and consultation through a Request for Comment

published in the Federal Register. Staff also met with

insurance regulators, policyholder groups, insurers,

reinsurers, modelers, and other governmental agencies to

gather further information.

The key findings of the PWG's analysis are set forth below.

The findings are presented under three main areas: the

general availability and affordability of terrorism risk

insurance; coverage for group life insurance; and coverage

for chemical, nuclear, biological, and radiological events.

Further detail on each finding is provided in the body of the

report.

Key Findings

Long-Term Overall Availability and Affordability of Terrorism

Risk Insurance

The availability and affordability of terrorism risk

insurance have improved since the terrorist attacks of

September 11, 2001. Despite increases in risk retentions

under TRIA, insurers have allocated additional capacity to

terrorism risk, prices have declined, and take-up (purchase)

rates have increased. The take-up rate--or the percentage of

companies buying terrorism coverage--has reportedly increased

from 27 percent in 2003 to 58 percent in 2005, while the cost

of coverage has generally fallen to roughly 3 to 5 percent of

total property insurance costs. These improvements have

transpired in a marketplace that has had access to a Federal

backstop that has gradually contracted through the life of

the temporary TRIA Program. Insurers' retention of risk has

steadily increased under the TRIA Program: deductibles have

increased from 7 percent of direct earned premium in 2003 to

17.5 percent in 2006, and other changes made to TRIA in 2005

have also increased insurer retentions. The general trend

observed in the market has been that as insurer retentions

have increased under TRIA and policyholder surpluses have

risen, prices for terrorism risk have fallen and take-up

rates have increased.

The improvement in the terrorism risk insurance market is

due to several important factors, including better risk

measurement and management, improved modeling of terrorism

risk, greater reinsurance capacity, and a recovery in the

financial health of property and casualty insurers. State

regulation does not appear to have had a significant impact

on capacity, and a significant number of policyholders are

still not purchasing terrorism coverage. How these factors

continue to evolve will importantly affect further

developments in the long-term availability and price of

terrorism risk insurance.

Insurers have made great strides in measuring and managing

their risk accumulations. The amount of capital an individual

insurance company is willing to allocate to a particular risk

in a given location depends on its understanding of its

maximum loss under different scenarios. Since September 11,

insurers have made greater use of sophisticated models that

allow them to identify and manage concentrations of risk in

order to avoid accumulating too much risk in any given

location. This improvement in risk accumulation management

has allowed insurers to better diversify and control their

terrorism risk exposures, which has enhanced their ability to

underwrite terrorism risk.

A significant effort has been made by the insurance

industry in modeling the potential frequency and severity of

terrorist attacks, which helps insurers to assess their

potential loss exposures. An understanding of the potential

frequency and severity of terrorist attacks is important for

insurers to properly evaluate their risk exposures.

Improvements in probability modeling of terrorist attacks

have likely had a positive impact on insurers' willingness to

provide coverage for terrorism risk following the re-

evaluation of terrorism risk that took place after September

11. However, unlike other catastrophic exposures (e.g.,

natural disasters) where there are more refined methods of

modeling frequency, modeling terrorism risk frequency relies

largely on analysis of terrorist behavior. Given the

uncertainty of terrorism in general and, in particular, the

uncertainty associated with these modeling efforts, insurers

appear to have limited confidence in these models for

evaluating their risk exposures.

The quantity of terrorism risk reinsurance capacity has

increased since the period following September 11.

Reinsurance for terrorism risk all but vanished after

September 11 as reinsurers withdrew from the market. The

market has since improved and reinsurers have gradually

allocated more capital to terrorism risk. The key

determinants in the capital allocation decisions of

reinsurers include pricing, which is influenced largely by

demand, loss experience, underwriting performance, and

probability of loss for a given risk at a given location.

These determinants also factor into the willingness of other

capital providers (e.g., through catastrophe bonds or other

mechanisms) to allocate capital to terrorism risk. The

presence of subsidized Federal reinsurance through TRIA

appears to negatively affect the emergence of private

reinsurance capacity because it dilutes demand for private

sector reinsurance.

The financial health and capacity of insurers has recovered

since September 11. There

has been improvement in the financial health of the insurance

industry, which plays a role in how much capacity an insurer

is willing to expose to terrorism risk. Since September 11,

policyholder surpluses in the property and casualty industry

have risen, as the industry has remained profitable (even

with the 2005 hurricane season losses) and has benefited from

increased rates of return on assets. As a result, insurers

have more available capital to allocate, and they apparently

have chosen to allocate additional capacity to terrorism risk

as demonstrated by the increased provision of terrorism risk

insurance coverage over the past few years.

States require that some types of terrorism risk insurance

be provided and otherwise regulate aspects of the terrorism

risk insurance market. However, it is unclear whether these

requirements have reduced capacity significantly. State laws

and regulations govern various aspects of the insurance

marketplace (e.g., mandating certain types of coverage,

approving forms and rates, and monitoring financial

solvency), and the provision of terrorism risk insurance

falls within this general structure. In terms of pricing,

although states regulate commercial insurance rates to

various degrees (to a larger extent with workers'

compensation insurance), commercial terrorism risk insurance

for large property risks may be exempt from state price

regulation or not subject to state price regulation (or other

state mandates) when purchased from non-admitted surplus

lines insurers. In addition, some insurers do not even charge

for the terrorism coverage that is included in their

policies. In lines of insurance with the greatest amount of

price regulation and coverage mandates (such as workers'

compensation insurance), insurers have generally remained in

the market, even as their TRIA retentions have increased,

despite not having the flexibility to fully price for

terrorism risk. Therefore, while state regulations have the

potential to significantly interfere with the operation of

the insurance markets, it does not appear that such

restrictions have had a significant impact in the market for

terrorism risk insurance in the post-TRIA environment.

While take-up rates have increased as prices have fallen, a

significant number of policyholders are still not purchasing

coverage. The willingness of consumers to pay for terrorism

risk insurance is a determinant of how much capital insurers

will allocate. It is unclear why approximately 40 percent of

all policyholders do not purchase coverage, although the

Treasury's 2005 study and others have found that the primary

reasons were price and assessment of their individual risk to

terrorist attack. Individual perceptions of low risk are

likely related to the lack of a successful terrorist attack

within the U.S. since 2001, and perhaps to some degree an

expectation that Federal aid might be available if a

significant attack occurs.

Further improvements in insurers' ability to model and

manage terrorism risk will likely contribute to the long-term

development of the terrorism risk insurance market. However,

the high level of uncertainty currently associated with

predicting the frequency of terrorist attacks, along with

what appears to be a general unwillingness of some insurance

policyholders to purchase insurance coverage, makes any

prediction of the potential degree of long-term development

of the terrorism risk insurance market somewhat difficult.

The post-September 11 terrorism insurance market has

developed in the presence of a Federal backstop (albeit a

progressively less generous one over time), which creates

inherent difficulties in evaluating the long-term development

of the terrorism risk insurance market.

Group Life Insurance

Coverage for terrorism risk insurance in group life

insurance policies has remained generally available and

prices have declined, even though group life insurance is not

part of TRIA. Given these market signals, there is no reason

to expect negative developments in the group life insurance

market. Group life insurance is generally sold to employers

as part of employee benefit packages along with other

benefits, such as medical, dental, vision, and disability. In

some cases group life insurers partner with other providers

of employee benefit services. The group life insurance market

is highly competitive and insurers appear to be unwilling in

the face of such competition to raise prices (states do not

regulate group life insurance rates), or to decline to

provide terrorism coverage. Even though group life insurance

has not had access to the Federal backstop under TRIA,

private market forces (high competitiveness and extreme price

sensitivity) have ensured the continued availability and

affordability of group life insurance to employers and their

participating employees.

As in the market for property and casualty reinsurance,

there have also been improvements in the availability of

catastrophic life reinsurance, and there is the potential for

continued market development. Just as with the property and

casualty reinsurance, catastrophic life reinsurance all but

disappeared after September 11, even though by most industry

metrics, September 11 was not a catastrophe in terms of

either individual or group life insurance losses. Still, the

lack or limited availability of catastrophic life reinsurance

following September 11 had no disruptive effect on the

availability and affordability of group life insurance to

consumers largely due to competitive market forces. Since

then, some catastrophic life reinsurance has again become

available in the marketplace, albeit at higher cost when

compared to pre-September 11 pricing. Today, group life

insurers are deciding whether to purchase reinsurance, or to

forgo and retain most of the risk--a decision that has not

had any impact on the availability and cost of group life

insurance to consumers.

Similar to the situation with property and casualty

insurers, group life insurers have developed an increased

ability to measure and manage their accumulation of terrorism

exposure through the use of modeling, and there appears to be

potential for additional improvements. While group life

insurers face aggregation exposure (the risk of multiple

losses from a terrorist-related mass casualty event due to

concentrations of insured lives), they are capable of

managing this risk to some degree by managing risk

accumulations. Property and casualty insurers have made great

strides in modeling techniques, but it is unclear to what

extent group life insurers have made use of these tools. The

highly competitive environment in the group life market, the

general wider dispersion of overall life insurance risks (for

companies that sell both group and individual life), and some

institutional arrangements regarding how policies are sold,

may all influence how group life insurers view their need and

ability to manage accumulation risk.

Chemical, Nuclear, Biological and Radiological (``CNBR'')

Coverage

Historically, insurance coverage for losses associated with

chemical, nuclear, biological, and radiological risks has

generally not been widely available unless it was mandated.

Insurers generally did not provide CNBR coverage even before

September 11, and for the most part they do not provide such

terrorism coverage even with a Federal backstop in place.

Given the general reluctance of insurance companies to

provide coverage for these types of risks, there may be

little potential for future market development. The factors

determining the availability and affordability of CNBR

coverage in the marketplace have more to do with the nature,

scale, and uncertainty of the damage and losses from CNBR

events--however caused--and less to do with terrorism

specifically. What coverage exists today is mostly tied to

state mandates, most prominently workers' compensation

insurance, as well as some aspects of fire insurance through

the Standard Fire Policy. In addition, a Federal mandate

requires some nuclear coverage for reactor operators and some

specialty coverage exists. There is virtually no CNBR

reinsurance available, and the modeling issues both for

exposure and probability become even more complicated for

Mr. Speaker, we have 19 days till this program expires. Now, if, as you have said, this is such an essential program, we need to pass a bill today. The industry needed 6 months. They've only got 19 days. Policies have to be written. We can continue to talk about not letting the Senate run over the House. We can continue to say we're going to stand up for our version of the bill, but ask yourself this question: How could 100 Senators, both Republicans and Democrats, come up with a unanimous bill, which many of us in this bill support, and the President said he will take it up and sign it, why are we here today delaying the extension of what many of you have argued on the floor today is a very important bill?

I'm going to say it again. Even if Congress were to act today, there's not enough time for insurance companies to develop new policy forms. There's not enough time for 50 State regulators to approve those forms. There's not time to get the finished product to the marketplace. There's not time to negotiate with policyholders.

So this idea that we don't have to pass it today, no, we don't have to pass it today. No, we don't have to pass it tomorrow. We should have passed it 6 months ago. We did. The Senate passed a different version, and we are arguing at the end of this session, 19 days before this program expires, as to differences between the Senate and the House version.

And quite frankly, as I have said, the Senate version, which is the version the Treasury Department urged on the House, the version the President has said he will sign, the insurance industry's happy with. It extends the TRIA program. Why are we here delaying? As I said, we're delaying this. We're putting this program at jeopardy. We're postponing a decision on AMT. The IRS is not going to have time to react to that, and here we are as if we have all the time in the world.

The American people are not interested in differences between the House and the Senate bill. I believe the American people, you know, if a bill can pass unanimously out of the Senate, which it did, and the President take it up, why does this House continue to debate long after the time to act and pass legislation? It should have happened 6 months ago. It can happen today. It should happen today.

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

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

It's all come down to this. We can continue to debate the Senate, we can continue to try to change this bill, or we can pass a bill, send it to the President, which extends this vitally important program as so many speakers on the majority side have said. Let's be honest with ourselves. We know that this bill should have passed 6 months ago. We know it probably should have passed 9 months ago. We know that it will not pass in time for new coverage to be written January 1. We know that.

So here we are, arguing differences with the Senate, but I think the first thing we ought to acknowledge is the Senate unanimously passed this bill. Now, the chairman says that two people got together, agreed on everything and the other 98 waved good-bye. Well, let me say this. We, the majority of this body, almost all the Members on your side, if not all, and a good number of the Members on our side have said we need to extend this program and we needed to do it 6 months ago. It's time for us to pass the Senate language, send this bill to the President. You know, there comes a time when if what the Senate did is wave this bill good-bye, it's time for us to wave this bill good-bye.

We have engaged in a debate. The Senate has been unfair to us. Quite frankly, policyholders don't care whether the Senate's unfair to the

House. They don't care whether the House didn't get its way and the Senate did. The bill the Senate passed, I'm not supporting it because it's not only the only thing available today, although it is. Let me again read to you what the statement of the administration is.

The administration continues to believe that any TRIA reauthorization should satisfy these three key elements: The program should be temporary and short-term, there should be no expansion of the program, and private sector retention should be increased. That was the original policies and the original bill we passed. However, the administration will not oppose the version of H.R. 2761 passed by the Senate on November 16, but the administration strongly opposes any amendments to the Senate-passed version of the bill away from the administration's key elements.

And the only thing underlined in this statement to us is, accordingly, if H.R. 2761 passes, that's the bill before us, if it's presented to the President to be considered, his senior advisers will recommend him veto the bill. A very important program.

It's already too late for insurance companies and policyholders to adopt the provisions as of January 1. State regulators don't have time to print the forms. It's time for us to pass the bill. It's time for us to say, Okay, we didn't settle all our differences with the Senate, and we can do that. And, quite frankly, I am very happy that it is the Senate bill we'll be passing, because the Senate bill is very, very close to what we Republicans some year ago proposed. And we've gone through a year.

Provisions, the House has not gotten its way on certain provisions. It's time to act. It's past time to act, and we're going to have that opportunity today. We're going to have the opportunity to extend what you say is a vital program, what some of us say, well, actually we're not getting what we want because we believe that this program continues to be a free Federal backstop for private insurers and developers, and that's okay.

We want development, just like you do. We don't believe, as the Treasury does, many of us, that the program has served its purpose and it is actually impeding the private market, but we don't have to get there. We have compromised our beliefs and are willing to vote for a 7- year extension. The Senate unanimously came together and compromised their various differences and voted unanimously for a version the President has said he will sign.

The only thing that remains is on this side, the House side, that some in the majority have not gotten their way on certain provisions. And listen, I'm all for advocating a House position, but we've done that, and in the interests of the American people, in the interests of getting legislation, in the interests of closure, let's vote for the Senate version.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

In its current form, I am.

Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, whom I have great respect for, indicated several times that we are here today because of the Senate's inaction and intransigence. Now, I'm not going to argue that point. The Senate, what they didn't do is they didn't take action on our bill, but what they did do is they came together and they unanimously passed legislation, and that legislation is very close to what House Republicans advocated from day one. They did take action. They passed legislation. The President said he'll sign it. It's legislation that Treasury said is consistent with the original declarations of the TRIA bill.

I share the chairman's frustration on the predicament we find ourselves in. I wish the Senate had been willing to engage in a conference to allow Members the opportunity to work out their differences on the extension of this program. However, I will tell the chairman this: The House Republicans, many of us on that conference committee, would have voted to adopt the Senate language. So the Senate bill, in my opinion, had we conferenced, we would have still passed the Senate bill.

Now, the chairman has expressed his frustration with the Senate that they are holding a gun to our head. I'm not going to characterize it in that regard. Whether it is or isn't, I wish it wasn't so. But the clock has run out on this Congress and the opportunity to get anything done on TRIA has, as a practical matter, gone by. But if it is so important, and most Members of this body believe it is, it's important to pass legislation today, and that's the Senate legislation.

The motion to recommit removes additions in the bill offered by the majority and returns the TRIA language to that passed by the Senate last month by unanimous consent. The Senate bill reflects a bipartisan compromise with the administration. It extends the TRIA program for 7 years, the same amount of time that we advocated in a bipartisan bill in the House. We didn't get a bipartisan bill in the House. It wasn't a bad bill. It wasn't a bad bill. But that bill when it passed and the bill today, the bill that was just offered, is not going to become law.

The Senate bill includes coverage for domestic terrorism. Many in this body felt like it ought to include that. It imposes a liability cap for the marketplace. That's good. I think it's a responsible, measured approach to extending a vital program, as many have characterized it. Not all on this side agree. But the majority on this side will come together, the majority of the minority, and pass what you say is a vital program and we'll do it today. The administration has said they will veto the House bill. Both sides of the aisle and the Senate have indicated that the Senate is unwilling to consider it. We have a gripe against the Senate, but let's take that up with the Senate. A large number of Members in the House may continue to oppose the Senate bill. You have an opportunity to vote on it in just a minute.

The only TRIA extension that can get enacted is the Senate compromise. Many say I wish it wasn't so. It is. The only responsible course for this House to take is to accept the Senate bill and move on. My motion is the Senate compromise.

We have 19 days until TRIA expires. Let me say it again. That's not a practical time left for the industry to comply with legislation. In a reasoned society, a deliberative body would never pass a bill and ask the American people to adopt all that in 5 days.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot risk TRIA's expiration. We need to get the job done now. A vote for this motion to recommit is a vote to promote economic vitality in this country.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 862, I call up the bill (H.R. 4299) to extend the Terrorism Insurance Program of the Department of the Treasury, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the pending legislation.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the House passed a version of the terrorism risk insurance program by a large vote, 300-something to 100-something, earlier this year. It happened after a very open process at the subcommittee and committee level. We had a very good set of meetings. There were concerns raised. I think there was general agreement that terrorism insurance had to go forward, but there were some very legitimate debates about how to do it. Not all of them, obviously, have been resolved.

We had, unusual for our committee and I think maybe for other committees, a full markup in subcommittee followed by a full markup in committee. The bill that emerged was much closer to a consensus product, although obviously not unanimous. There were amendments offered by both sides. There were bipartisan compromises worked out. We came to the floor. It wasn't as open a process as I would have hoped, but it still represented, we thought, a fairly good piece of legislation, and, of course, it got well over 70 percent of the House Members voting for it. Then it went to the Senate and nothing happened for a very long time, and I regret that. We had hoped that we could continue this process and in fact have a conference. The Senate did not act.

Finally, the Senate acted and sent us a bill which was an extension of the current program, better in my view than the current program, not as comprehensive as the bill we passed. And we were told by the Senate, as we have been from time to time this year: This is all we can do. Take it or leave it. That seemed to me to be a problem and, now, not so much for substance as for institutional concerns. Members have asked, well, in the end we may just have to accept what the Senate sent us. That is possible, and we have preserved the option to do that.

Let me be very clear, Mr. Speaker. We are here dealing with a new bill that we introduced. The Senate bill still sits at the desk. It will be available if the Senate continues to refuse to act in any kind of a bicameral manner. But I am not ready to give up yet, Mr. Speaker, on some important issues, the most important of which is the institutional one. It is simply not in the spirit of the United States Constitution for one of the Houses to say, this is it, take it or leave it, especially when you contrast the way in which the two Houses acted. We had subcommittee and committee markup and debate on the floor. The Senate had one of their not very open processes. The bill emerged from some quiet conversations among the senior members of both parties and went to the floor, no amendments, no votes, here it is. As I said, I regret that. We may not be able to prevent it from happening in this instance. I do think it is important for us to send the message that we do not want to see this sort of procedure repeated.

So what we did was to in effect have a virtual conference. We looked at the Senate bill, we looked at our bill, and we came up with what I think might well have resulted had there been a conference. The bill we passed had a 15-year extension. The reason for a long extension is that we are talking here about building projects. We are talking about the need for terrorism risk insurance if we are to get large commercial buildings, or residential, but especially commercial buildings built in our big cities. You can't get those buildings obviously without bank loans and you can't get the bank loans without insurance. That is why the Chamber of Commerce scores this as an important bill, why the real estate industry, the cities, a whole range of business and urban interests tell us this is important. And you need to have some assurance of a timeframe in which to build. We thought 15 years. The Senate said 7 years. We didn't here come with a split-the-difference. We have accepted

the Senate's 7 years. We were told at the last minute that there was a PAYGO problem in a calculation by the Congressional Budget Office that I still do not understand, but we have no option but to abide by it. We came up with a PAYGO solution which was not a very good one. The Senate came up with, and I give them credit here, a much better PAYGO solution. They had more time to work on it, but they did it well. We have accepted the Senate PAYGO solution. So we accept that term of years, we accept that PAYGO solution.

We had also broadened this from simply being in case a building was destroyed to include group life insurance and protection against what sadly we cannot rule out, nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological attacks. The Senate rejected both of those. We split the difference. We accepted their rejection of nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological attacks. We did feel that group life insurance should be in. I should say that including the group life provision is something that was called to our attention on a bipartisan basis from Members from Florida which says that you should not have your life insurance cancelled if you go to Israel. That is basically what we are talking about, or maybe some other areas where the insurance companies think there is a problem when there isn't one. And we checked, and the number of payoffs they have had to make of people who died going to Israel or other countries on their list is negligible, zero, from what we could tell. So we included a provision in our bill that was overwhelmingly supported by both sides, to say that there were rules; not that you couldn't deny someone life insurance if they were going to a hazardous area, but that you had to have a rational process by which you defined that.

We put group life back in. Members will remember that after the 2001 mass murders of so many innocent Americans by vicious thugs, we adopted a very expensive program to compensate people. A better way to do that would be to have this group life insurance as part of the terrorism risk insurance.

And at the request of smaller insurance companies, we lowered the trigger from $100 million to $50 million per incident, because small insurance companies said to us: We would like to be able to insure some of these buildings. Our colleagues from some of the smaller States brought this to our attention. But if it is $100 million that you have to absorb before this kicks in, we can't do it; we can do it at $50 million.

So we accept the Senate version on 7 years versus our 15. We accept their version of PAYGO. We accept their rejection of nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological weapons. We do ask that group life insurance be kept in with the travel provision I mentioned, and that the trigger go from $100 million to $50 million.

Finally, there is the reset provision, which says that if you have once been attacked and you have to deal with it, should that same area be attacked again, the clock starts again. That is, you would not be in a position where, having been attacked once by these vicious murderers, you would be unable to get full insurance if they did it a second time.

Those are the differences. As I said, we have no guarantee that the Senate will do this or pay even serious attention. We have retained a vehicle in case they don't. But I don't want, and I said this earlier, we are not debating preemptive strikes here. We are debating preemptive surrender. I don't want to have a situation where the United States Senate passes legislation, sends it to us and says, You may not even think about changing things.

We are prepared to compromise. But I think inclusion of group life and that travel protection is important. We think that the smaller insurance companies had a legitimate concern. We think the reset provision is legitimate.

We are asking the Senate again to consider them. We can't compel that. But I think it would be a mistake for us to set the precedent that, when they confront us with these ultimata, that we simply cave in.

Let me repeat, because I got it right now. I was quoting before the lyric from ``MacArthur Park.'' What the Senate tells us is, Look, we were able to do this, but we can't do it again. You just have to accept it as it is. And the theme song apparently is, if people will remember; I will say it because I sing something awful.

``Someone left the cake out in the rain.

I don't think that I can take it

'Cause it took so long to bake it

And I'll never have the recipe again.''

If someone in the Senate tells us, we left the bill out in the rain, or at least they are telling us that if we were to try to get them to change it, it would be leaving the bill out in the rain, and they couldn't remake it because they don't have the recipe.

Mr. Speaker, I think it's time to send the Senate back to their recipe books and ask them to keep track. I understand in the end we may not be able to change things, but I do not want this House simply at this point to say, Okay, you gave us an ultimatum, we accept it.

I would hope, and we are going to be here obviously next week, that the small life insurance companies, people interested in the ability to travel to Israel and others would then at least go to Senators and say, Can't we at least even have a vote on this? Can't you even consider this?

And that is why I ask that today we send this bill back over. We retain a vehicle if the Senate remains impervious, but I think it's worth a try.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, there is no chance of waiting until after it expires. I don't know why the gentleman would have said that. He knows there is zero chance of that.

Now, I agree it has waited too long. But I would have been more impressed with the urgency if I had had people joining us in trying to get the Senate to act. We passed the bill months ago. We would have liked to have seen an act. But I didn't hear all this passion trying to force the Senate to act, and it was partly the minority in the Senate that was blocking it, that is, block the ability to have a conference.

Here is the point. I think telling the life insurance companies that they should not be restricting people's ability to travel unfairly is important. We think group life is important. We think that not allowing your community to be disadvantaged if it has been attacked once is important. And we may not be able to accomplish them this year, but we think it is important not simply to cave in and say those aren't even worth fighting for.

We are going to send a message, I hope, by voting for those principles because we pass the bill this year, and we may have to accept a minimal position, but we will be back here in a month or two and we hope to renew some of these things.

So I just reject the notion that the Senate can achieve this by waiting and waiting and waiting and then saying, Oh, well, there isn't enough time. There is not enough time because they held it up. No one can seriously argue that having seen this delay of many months, and again I didn't hear all this passion trying to make the Senate act for all of those months, nobody can argue that another day or two is going to make a difference. And that's what we're talking about.

So I reiterate, there is no chance of this expiring. Everybody knows that. We have preserved our ability at any point simply to accept this bill. The question is do we give up now or do we send them the message that the ability to travel to Israel, the concern for the small insurance companies being able to insure commercial properties and the concern for group life and not just property, that those are important issues.

We can take that vote today and send that message. And if we have to, we will accommodate reality. But we will have sent that message, and it gives us a basis upon which to act next year.

I yield now 6 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), a representative from the city who is Chair of the Financial Institution Subcommittee and has been very active on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman said why put the provision in if the Senate said it's not going to talk about group life? Because I don't think that we should have a de facto amendment to the House rules that puts the Senate in charge of what we can discuss.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

The gentleman has raised a red herring. There is no chance of it expiring, and the fact that he would talk about a nonexistent threat of expiration seems to me to be an indication that there's nothing substantive to talk about.

In the end, we would retain the vehicle to pass this bill. But we will not give up talking about issues prematurely, and that's why we will not allow the Senate's unanimous consent agreement, very hastily done, to shut off debate here. But there is no chance of this expiring and the gentleman from Alabama knows that.

I yield now 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I would just say the gentleman from Alabama appears to have the Senate's preference for conflict avoidance confused with genuine consensus.

There weren't 100 votes for that. They didn't have a roll call vote. They're barely able to act, and so a couple of Members worked out a deal and the rest of them waved it good-bye. But the notion that that comes with some great significance clearly misunderstands what's happening, and it certainly shouldn't keep us from legislating.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Sires).

How much time remains?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin with the schizophrenic attitude towards the Senate. The gentleman said a number of times that the Senate passed this unanimously. Yes, by avoiding conference, by making a deal.

But he also continually said, correctly, that this bill was passed way too late. Why are we here now? The answer as to why we're here now, Mr. Speaker, it's the Senate that he was so admiring of. Yes, the Senate passed it without a vote, on November 16. We passed the bill on September 19. The House passed the bill with 3\1/2\ months left to go in the year. The Senate passed the bill less than a month ago. The Senate passed the bill, by the way, a different bill than ours, after we had adjourned for the recess.

So the Senate, whom he extols for having managed to put everything under the rug and make one of their deals where nobody gets fingerprinted for anything, they sent us this bill, and the earliest we could have passed it was last week. So all this rhetoric about 6 months, et cetera, well, that's, Mr. Speaker, his friends in the Senate who caused that problem. If they had worked with us, we would have had several months.

Now, we are going to pass a bill. We understand that. And we may well be able to pass only the Senate bill early next week. We have preserved our ability to do that. There is no chance of this expiring. The question is this: Should we acquiesce in a procedure by which the United States Senate waits until after we have adjourned for the Thanksgiving recess and sends us a bill and says, this is it, take it or leave it, or do we say, no, we don't like that and we're going to at least try to make you vote on things.

Now, I know the gentleman from Alabama likes the Senate version apparently where you just have unanimity so-called. I prefer democracy. I prefer letting things get voted on. Maybe the Senate won't vote, but let's at least give them one more option. It may take us another 3 or 4 days. So the notion that we are somehow delaying this for 3 or 4 days, no. We waited from our bill in September to theirs in November. Two months later they passed it. Three days or 4 days isn't going to make any difference and we'll get the bill through.

Here's what we want to do. We want to say that the point that the gentlewoman from Florida made that you should not arbitrarily cancel people's life insurance because they're traveling to a country that's on the State Department watch list, whether it's the nation of Israel or others that Americans want to travel to. Yes, if you can show that there's danger there, you can cut off their insurance. But don't say that we're just going to give up on that. Maybe we can't do it this year. Let's take the motion to recommit, then, because we're going to pass this bill soon, anyway, and we may have to pass the Senate version. Let's have a referendum on the freedom to travel provision. Let's have a referendum on whether or not we include group life or say that we insure buildings in this country but not life. Let's have a referendum on whether smaller insurance companies should be able to participate. Under our bill they can. Under the Senate bill they can't. And let's have that reset mechanism that the gentleman from Queens, New York, talked about so eloquently, which says we're going to rebuild and any place that's hit, we will rebuild them again.

Let me say, we have a referendum on those issues. We may not be able to win this year, but I want to be able, as chairman of the committee, to go back early next year and say to our friends in the Senate, okay, your rope-a-dope tactics may have worked, but they didn't work on the merits.

And we want to go back at you on small insurance companies and on group life and on the question of freedom to travel, and we want to bring it up again.

And the last point, when we're talking about why is this being done now, it's supposed to be temporary? I never thought it would be temporary. Here's the point: If you go through the private market, it is paid for by the insured, ultimately. I do not think that those people who are choosing to do business in areas that may be singled out by the terrorists ought to have to pay the higher cost of insuring themselves for that. Against fire, against theft, against liability for someone falling down, sure, that's their responsibility. But defending ourselves against terrorism is not a market matter; it's a matter of national security. And the whole country ought to come together in a unified way and say you may not threaten New York or Chicago or Atlanta or Miami, or any other part of America, or Los Angeles, as they threatened the airport. You may not threaten us and make us pay more. You cannot make it more expensive to do business in one part of this country than another. We will come together as one Nation in this program and say, yes, you are responsible for insuring yourself against various dangers. But for insuring yourself against murderous thugs seeking to do harm to this country, this country will come together as one in a national program and rebut that, and we will not allow them to intrude.

Now, again, it may be that in the end the best we can get is the Senate bill. But at this point, I urge the Members not to vote down, in principle, a reset mechanism that says, okay, you only get hit once and then you're gone, or the freedom to travel, or group life, or smaller companies.

I hope the motion to recommit is defeated and that we let the Senate know that we will continue to engage in democracy in this part of the Capitol.

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

I rise in opposition to this rule, despite my long-term support for TRIA, because passing a bill that has already been pronounced dead on arrival in the Senate foolishly puts the reauthorization of this important program in jeopardy as its expiration date at the end of the year draws ever closer because

the Democrat House leadership has decided to continue to play political games on this issue.

By engaging in this game of what I call ``legislative chicken'' with the Senate, the House is setting itself up for potentially allowing this important program to expire, an outcome that I believe is bad for continued growth of the American economy and is an outcome that I strongly oppose.

But even if the Senate were somehow to miraculously pass this legislation, the Statement of Administration Policy regarding this legislation that was released by the Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday makes it clear that President Bush will veto this bill in its current form and that any extension of the TRIA program must be temporary and short term, include no program expansion and must increase private sector retentions.

At this time, I will submit a copy of the Statement of Administrative Policy for substantially similar legislation explaining the futility of today's legislative exercise in the Congressional Record.

Executive Office of the President, Office of Management

and Budget,

Washington, DC, December 11, 2007.

Statement of Administration Policy

H.R. 2761--Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007

The Administration believes that the Terrorism Risk

Insurance Act (TRIA) should be phased out in favor of a

private market for terrorism insurance. The most efficient,

lowest-cost, and most innovative methods of providing

terrorism risk insurance will come from the private sector.

Therefore, the Administration has set forth three key

elements for an acceptable extension of TRIA: (1) the Program

should be temporary and short-term; (2) there should be no

expansion of the Program; and (3) private sector retentions

should be increased.

The Administration continues to believe that any TRIA

reauthorization should satisfy these three key elements.

However, the Administration will not oppose the version of

H.R. 2761 passed by the Senate on November 16, 2007. The

Administration strongly opposes any amendments that move the

Senate-passed version of the bill away from the

Administration's key elements. Accordingly, if H.R. 2761 were

presented to the President in the form to be considered by

the House, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto

the bill.

Mr. Speaker, the Senate version of this legislation is not perfect. However, I do believe that on behalf of terrorism insurance policyholders, American workers and businesses, the health of our insurance marketplace and the continued growth of the American economy, it is important for the House to stop playing games with TRIA and to pass a bill that can advance through the Senate and be signed into law by President Bush.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to reject this exercise in legislative futility so that the Rules Committee can instead bring to the floor a rule that would provide for consideration of the Senate compromise bill that the House has already received.

It's time to stop playing games on this important issue and for the majority to finally grow up and lead to protect the American economy from the threat of terrorism.

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

Mr. Speaker, we urge the legislation to be passed, also. And that's why we're encouraging for the House to agree to the Senate version so we can get this done before the expiration at the end of the year.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect and admiration for the chairman of the committee, and I think that virtually everything the chairman said I agree with. I think the question is of timing. The fact of the matter is that the majority has chosen to not have a conference. They have chosen to negotiate among themselves, and they have chosen to wait until the last minute. With great respect to the gentleman, these are lots of arguments I could have been making or our chairman could have made just several years ago for a number of years.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Reclaiming my time, we are not negotiating with the Senate, we are negotiating with ourselves, and I believe that what we need to do is get it done.

Now, there are reasons why the gentleman has chosen to do what he has done. I really can't disagree with him. I really don't. From an institutional perspective, for making the bill better, I think every one of these are great arguments. I think my point would be similar to what we are trying to make on our side: Let's get our work done so the rest of the world and the rest of the marketplace can get their work done. It's pretty late. We are now moving on to the middle of December and this expires at the end of December. There are lots of paperwork issues, there are lots of legal issues, there are lots of contract issues. There are lots of things that need to be done, and it takes some period of time. We are doing the same thing with the AMT. We are trying to say, why don't we not rock the boat because what you are going to do is put in jeopardy the ability this next year for the IRS to even get their work done. So the wake-up call, the head snap is, today it's darn near the middle of December. I could have completely bought off on everything the chairman said, every single word, every single philosophy, everything he said if this were November 15. It is not. It is 1 month later. It is time that we get our work done so that the marketplace can get their work done so that investors can know that they are taken care of, so that we can have certainty in the marketplace and so that we know what we are going to pass. And that is the only disagreement.

Retrieving my time, I would say to the gentleman that we believe we should not continue doing what the gentleman is doing. We should do what the agreement should be and get it done, because we believe that there are overriding considerations, Mr. Speaker, in the marketplace, with people who need an answer today to be able to get their work done. And waiting until the end, whatever that means, does not help the marketplace.

We are not the start-all and end-all of the world by being the United States Congress. There is a marketplace out there. There are people who need things done. New York City is a fine example of where the business community and those that own property need TRIA. Let's get the thing done. I would have agreed completely with what the gentleman said 1 month ago. It is now time. We are asking, please, let's get this thing done. Let's come to an agreement.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

The question that I would have for the gentleman is, whom are you negotiating with in the Senate? You talked about these negotiations. Whom is the negotiation with?

I thank the gentleman. So we are going to keep playing ping pong?

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate both the gentlemen from the Financial Services Committee offering their explanation about this process. I would once again remind my friends in this great body that there is a lot of work that needs to be done after this bill leaves both of these bodies, including a signature of the President of the United States. What we do does matter and is important. But it is time we get our work done to allow the people who really do matter, and that is the people who are in the marketplace to be able to buy the insurance, to make it available and to get it ready days from now. It is time to put aside our differences. It is time to enter the real negotiation, and that is either to have a real conference where we know where people are to get it done, or to find a way to cut a deal. And, instead, to come back to this body and to once again change the rechange of the change I think is a bad deal.

So we're going to vote ``no.'' We would like to get the deal done, but not to continue to deal.

You see, Mr. Speaker, in the world where I come from, it is results that matter, not just reworking the work to rework the work, just like what this body has gotten used to this year with 10 out of 11 spending bills not being done. I would remind the majority, you got a lot of work to do there, too, so that we can have the confidence of the American people that we can not only run the railroad on time, but we can make wise decisions.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman, and responding to the gentleman, I have no additional speakers.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, the conversation that has taken place today is one that was important. The Republican Party does support and thinks what the gentleman is doing is of a worthy nature. The gentleman, Mr. Frank, has, for a number of years, not only spoken about this issue but has worked hard for its resolution. We know that if we continue to work together on issues like this, we can get things done. But getting things done is also important, and we think that a bill should have been done, an agreement should have been reached before now and negotiations should have ended because it is now time to give to the President, it is now time to give to the marketplace.

But I also recognize that this is the 44th closed rule of this session, that somebody is not really interested in what we think. That's why we have 44 closed rules this year. So we come to the floor, once again, the Republican Party, saying, you can have it your way, we know you have the votes, 44th closed rule this year. But let's get our work done. Let's not have the American people waiting on the House of Representatives.

I know the Speaker of the House wants to do things in the way that she sees fit. But let's get our work done. The American people are waiting. They are waiting not just on AMT. They are not just waiting on this bill that we have today. They are waiting on, like the rest of the government, the other 10 out of the 11 spending bills. And I do think that the American people don't confuse a lot of work that is being done with progress. Progress is the end result where you get something done and then say, We're proud of our effort. All I have heard all today, notwithstanding the prior arguments, and these arguments, that everybody is trying to take credit for everything. We are far short of the runway. We are far short of the runway because what we do here must be done right, but must be finished and done so that the American people and the economy can move forward.

I know this is a closed rule. If it had been an open rule, and that is okay, we understand. If it had been an open rule, we would have said, let's get this thing done. Let's close it. I offered an amendment in the Rules Committee the other day that said, let's take the Senate language, let's decide we will just accept what they have done so that we can get it done in proper timing. On a party-line vote that was defeated. So there is a reason why the Speaker wants to continue this dialogue. There's a reason why the Speaker wants to wait and to hold this out. I don't understand it. But the Republican Party once again today is saying, we think we ought to get our work done. We think we should do what we said we were going to do, and we should then let the American public see what we have done and not hide things in secret.

Let's get this done, let's get TRIA done, let's get our AMT done, let's get the 10 out of 11 spending bills done, and let's show the American people we can do the work which we were sent here to do. That is the position of the Republican Party.

Mr. Speaker, we yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, there are times when we will have arguments across the aisle. I don't think there is any need for us to engage in that now because our differences are across the building, not across the aisle.

Let me begin by saying to the gentleman from Texas, we agree, we will not let this program die. And as the gentleman from Texas knows, he has had to sit through this on the Rules Committee three times this year, twice this past week, because we did originally think about taking the bill the Senate had passed, amending it, and sending it back. I am disappointed to say that we heard from all points that if that happened, the Senate might be so unable to function as to kill the program.

The United States Senate has perfected something I call ``the strength of weakness.'' They labor to do anything whatsoever, and having done it, tell people that if we ask them to change one bit of it they will collapse in a heap. It's like the song from ``MacArthur Park,'' someone left the bill out in the rain, and they won't be able to remake it because they will never have the recipe again. That's what we keep hearing.

But, on the other hand, and here's where I do disagree with my friend from Texas, I know we've had some disagreements here about the role of preemptive strikes in foreign policy. Here our disagreement is on the role of preemptive surrender in interbranch negotiations.

I agree that if all else fails and the Senate does not act on this bill, we will have to acquiesce. I regret that. I think it would be much less good public policy than we could do if we had the normal legislative process. But I have spoken to the Senators from New York. They report to me that the Governor of New York and the mayor of New York, and New York is not the only entity covered by this, and indeed, some of these things, they're all universal. But people are concerned, and so we have reluctantly agreed not to endanger the chances of this if the Senate is unable to act.

On the other hand, and here's where I differ, I am unwilling at this point to let it end without the Senate once again being given a chance to function on several issues. The gentleman from Vermont just talked about the smaller companies. The reduction of the trigger from $100 to $50 million was done unanimously, I believe, or overwhelmingly, by our committee at the request of small insurance companies who wanted to be able to insure. The argument is, if they do not have the smaller trigger, many of them would not feel able to bid on insurance for these building projects. So, I think that's important.

We had the inclusion of group life insurance. I am afraid that in the Senate version, this is kind of the analog of the old neutron bomb. Remember the neutron bomb; it killed people and left the buildings standing. The Senate would have us have a provision that ensures buildings but ignores people. Well, people die in these terrorist attacks. We all remember that this Congress, in 2001 or 2002, passed a program that cost us billions of dollars to compensate those who lost their lives. Why should we not allow that to be done to the insurance system? That's another thing we would like to have in there.

And as part of the life insurance, as has been noted by a colleague, there is a provision that was not contested in our committee that would prevent discrimination against people who are traveling to places that some companies might think inappropriate to travel, particularly Israel. There is a provision in here that says you're not going to be penalized for, and this was brought to our attention by some of our colleagues from Florida. Now, all of those are in the bill we want to send back.

Also, a reset mechanism that, obviously it applies to New York where they've already had a terrorist attack, would apply nationally so that you don't get only one bite at the apple if the terrorists choose to strike again. And I think the major reason for doing TRIA is to neutralize the effect that murderous thugs who wish this country and its people ill can have on our policies. That's why we want terrorism insurance. This is part of national defense. This is to make it a government program as part of our defense against this activity.

But there are other parts of this where we have accepted this. Frankly, this looks like what a conference would look like if we were in a rational world where we could have a conference. We said 15 years, they said 7. We've accepted 7. By the way, I will say that in the prior Congress, we only had 2.

The reason for a longer term is that this is important if people are to be able to build in our large cities and other areas which are threatened by terrorism. Because you cannot get the building without a loan, you cannot get the loan without insurance, and a 2-year timeline is obviously too short for major building projects. We accepted that. We wanted protection against nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological attacks. No one thinks that's out of the picture. The Senate said no to it. We accepted that. So, we compromised with them.

And finally, a PAYGO issue arose at the last minute. We didn't do it well here, and the Senate did it well, and I congratulate them for that. It was good legislating. So we accept their term of 7 years. We accept their version of PAYGO. We accept their jettisoning of nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological. But we would like to include group life, and we would like to accommodate the smaller companies, and we would like to have the reset mechanism.

In the end, as I said, we understand we can't compel them, but we believe it is worth another try. Passing this bill will in no way jeopardize our ability in the end, if nothing else fails, to accept the 7 years that the Senate sent us.

But I appeal to the Members here out of an institutional concern. Let's understand that in the end, if the Senate refuses to do certain things, they may have an advantage. But let's not make it easy. Let's not continue a process by which Senators can avoid tough issues. Maybe some Senator will raise some of these issues. Maybe, I know it's ``maybe'' in a land of fantasy, the Senate would vote on some of them and Senators would have to decide if they wanted to say no, it's okay if you can't travel to Israel with your life insurance, it's okay if the smaller companies are kept out, it's okay to insure buildings but not people. Maybe it won't work, but no harm will be done.

I would also add this: In terms of the rule, nothing in the bill that we are proposing today is new except for the Senate PAYGO, and the Senate PAYGO, we all agree, I believe, is superior, given the need to do a PAYGO.

This is a bill that was voted on in subcommittee and in committee and came to the floor. It was amended in various ways. It was a bipartisan product. In the end, the vote was something like 300-plus to 100-plus when the bill passed here in the House; not unanimous, obviously, but with a lot of bipartisanship.

Everything in the bill today, with the exception of the Senate PAYGO, has already been through subcommittee and committee and the floor. But we are saying to the Senate there are important issues here, on group life, on the reset, on travel, on smaller companies. And we are simply, I hope, not ready to say to them we roll over and play dead without giving them another chance to address these issues.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I would only ask to amend one thing. It is not the majority. Here we wanted a conference, and in the Senate, it was both parties that refused. It was not the majority. Indeed, there was objection more from the minority side. So I would only differ with the notion that

it was somehow a majority decision. We asked for a conference, and we were told on a bipartisan basis over there they wouldn't give us one.

I thank the gentleman.

If it were up to me, obviously, we would have done this earlier. The only thing I can say is, and I appreciate the spirit of cooperation, I only regret that he cannot love me in December as he did in May.

I would just say on this, and I didn't want to make it in any way partisan, but what we have been told is that the senior Republican on the committee, the gentleman from Alabama, has said this is all he will accept. I have talked to the chairman of the committee, the Senator from Connecticut, I've talked to the Senator from New York, and they were ready to discuss it. But they said that given Senate rules, they could not get the Senator from Alabama to do anything else, and they didn't feel they could change that.

There were also concerns that even if we were to send back exactly the bill that he had wanted, another Senator might object, because that is a volatile place. But we did talk to the Senator from Connecticut, we talked to the Senator from New York. The Senator from Alabama, the ranking minority member, was the major opponent.

I would yield to my friend.

No, this is not ping pong. This is ping. We're keeping pong

over here. That is, we are going to send them and give them one more chance. But we are keeping their version over here if all else fails.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I am reminded of a quote from late President Reagan, and perhaps I can paraphrase: The closest thing to eternal life on Earth is a Federal program.

Indeed, we have had speaker after speaker come before in this debate to tell us how TRIA was going to be a temporary program. And I see the able gentlelady from New York, the chairwoman of our Financial Institutions Subcommittee. I wasn't here in this body when TRIA was originally passed, but I took the time to review the record of the debate. At that time she said, ``We are simply working to keep our economy on track with a short-term program that addresses the new terrorist threat.''

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, the chairman of our Capital Markets Subcommittee said, ``We wisely design the TRIA Act as a temporary backstop to get our Nation through a period of economic uncertainty until the private sector can develop models.''

And if you look at the Record, Mr. Speaker, of those who proposed TRIA in the first place, all said it would be a temporary program. Perhaps temporary is in the eye of the beholder. What started out as a 3-year program has since become a 5-year program. The House attempted to extend it 15 years. I think we are now looking at a 7-year extension. I believe for all intents and purposes, we are looking at giving birth de facto to a new Federal permanent insurance program to go along with the scores of others, few of which are financially sound.

So again, what was meant to be temporary, and I hope had I been in this body at that time I would have voted for it. I was here for the vote on the first extension, and I supported that extension. I believe there was, indeed, a great calamity in this marketplace. I believe that people in the marketplace needed time to react, to plan, to model. But again, is this something that is going to go on in perpetuity?

The question again is begged, and that is, Who can do a better job in the reinsurance market, the Federal Government or private industry? I have no doubt that private industry would love to have the subsidies that are represented by TRIA. Any time the government is going to hand out something free or at a subsidized rate versus the market rate, who wouldn't accept it? Such a deal. I certainly understand that they might be favoring this.

Now, I haven't heard in this debate, but in previous iterations of the debate I have heard many come and talk about the great tragedy of 9/11, and I want to let it be known again, we are talking about terrorism reinsurance. It does nothing to prevent terrorism in the first place. We are talking about coming in after the fact and providing this Federal backstop, which many of us don't believe is any longer necessary, putting the taxpayer on the hook at a time when markets could develop.

I would take the argument more serious if more people on the other side of the aisle would vote to strengthen, for example, the FISA legislation. Unfortunately, many of them are voting to make it even more difficult for our Federal Government to listen in on the conversations of known terrorists. Most of the Democrats, most of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, in May voted against the Hoekstra amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act which would have eliminated that section of the bill requiring the Director of National Intelligence to use resources, and I paraphrase him, to study bugs and bunnies instead of suspected terrorists. They have supported expanding the legal rights of terrorist detainees, holding up passage of the 9/11 Commission Recommendation Implementation bill to give union bargaining advantages to TSA screeners, and the list goes on and on.

So if we want to talk about terrorism, let's talk about what we can do to prevent it in the first place as opposed to what we can do to subsidize large insurance companies after the fact.

Another point I would like to make, and everybody is certainly entitled to their own opinion, and I have looked very carefully at the President's working group position on this, and they have observed what I have observed, and that is the availability and affordability of terrorism risk insurance has improved since the initial terrorist attacks. And despite increases in risk retentions under TRIA, insurers have allocated additional capacity to terrorism risk. Prices have declined. Take-up rates have increased.

I simply don't buy into the argument, Mr. Speaker, that we have a market failure here that somehow, some way the market can't create this particular insurance product.

I mean, how are we ever going to know, once again, if we're going to hand out something free or at a subsidized rate, as opposed to people having to buy it at the market rate?

And let me quote from the President's working group: ``The presence of subsidized Federal reinsurance through TRIA appears to negatively affect the emergence of private reinsurance capacity because it dilutes demand for private sector reinsurance.''

Now, some have said, well, again, that terrorism is a very unique risk. Well, of course it is. But our reinsurance industry has faced these challenges in the past. At one point they had to figure out how to model for the risk of loss of electronic data. At one time in our history they had to figure out how to model for airline crashes.

Many say that we will never have major construction in the United States unless we have a government, Federal reinsurance backstop for acts of terrorism. I simply don't observe that in real life.

And how, Mr. Speaker, during the Cold War, when thousands of nuclear weapons were poised, aimed at our Nation, how did construction take place during that time in our history? Yet there are those who will maintain that somehow it cannot take place today.

Again, I'm not saying that reinsurance is not an important aspect of our market. It is. But I disagree with those on the other side of the aisle who say that even after 5 years that the market is simply incapable of creating a product that those who wish it can pay for at an affordable rate.

Another point I would make is that even if this were a valuable program to the Nation, what are we going to do to

pay for it, and what are the long-term implications?

Again, as I mentioned earlier, Uncle Sam does not have a particularly stellar track record when it comes to running insurance programs.

Social Security, according to the latest report of the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, owes $6.8 trillion, trillion with a T, more in benefits than it's receiving in taxes, and has a long-term deficit of almost $9 trillion, not a particularly good track record there.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is currently running a deficit of $18.1 billion, with an additional off-balance sheet liability of $73.3 billion.

The National Flood Insurance Program has a shortfall of $1.3 billion a year over the long term and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, its current financial situation is unsustainable.

Medicaid, $317 billion a year. The National Governors Association says, ``The growth of a program that is unsustainable in its current form.''

The Federal crop insurance program requires Federal subsidies. The list goes on and on and on and on. As history is my guide, Mr. Speaker, forgive me if I don't share the enthusiasm and optimism of those on the other side of the aisle who say that somehow this is not going to prove painful for future taxpaying generations. I believe it will be.

I believe the private market can handle this. I think they will handle this if we give them the opportunity. I do not think the private insurance companies need this huge subsidy.

And when, Mr. Speaker, are we finally going to do something about the long-term financial implications of entitlement spending in these insurance programs?

Now, something's got to give. The Comptroller General has said that we're on the verge of being the first generation in America's history to leave the next generation with a lower standard of living because of out-of-control spending. Instead, we add burden on top of burden on top of burden.

Because of all those reasons, Mr. Speaker, I oppose this legislation, I oppose this report and would urge the House to oppose it as well.