Hearing of U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs "Treasury Department's Report to Congress Regarding The Terrorism Risk .....
U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
"Treasury Department's Report to Congress Regarding The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002"
Do you know that under the Treasury new trigger proposal many of our world's most recent terror attacks would not be covered? London would not be covered. Madrid would not be covered.
I take issue with the fact that you only collected data until February 2005 several weeks short of the end of the first business quarter.
The bottom line is that I am absolutely open to a serious consideration of minor tweaks to improve the TRIA program. But, I am not willing to accept any drastic changes that are based on incomplete data, information driven by ideologues, or information that simply lacks empirical evidence.
I mean you said it yourself, the program has been effective, it has been a success.
Mr. Chairman, as we move forward I want us to remember why this program was established in the first place.
It was established to create a public/private partnership between business and government that would provide a safety net to allow us to bounce back from a terrorist attack with little market disruption and minimal impact on our overall economy.
That need has not changed. We know what happens when there's no terrorism insurance, because it happened in 2002. In that year, the President himself said that the lack of terrorism insurance cost our economy tens of billions of dollars and 300,000 construction jobs.
We [in government] have a responsibility to get this done to protect our nation's businesses and workers.
We have a responsibility to find a long-term solution because terrorism is a long-term problem.
[Until our government can declare that we are no longer at risk of a terror attack, no longer in need of the Department of Homeland Security - we will continue to be in need of TRIA.]
But most of all we have a responsibility to create policies to protect our policyholders - they are our businesses and property owners. We should not be in the business of placing the financial burden of fighting the war on terrorism on our private citizens.
If you look at the history of war in this country that has never been the case.
* During World War II we provided a program called the War Risk Insurance program that provided insurance for property damage here in the US caused by German or Japanese attacks.
* During the Viet man War we provided an insurance program to cover commercial airplanes that flew into and out of Vietnam.
* And, today we have a first dollar loss insurance program for the airline industry to cover losses caused by terrorism in the US, which is expected to be reauthorized at the end of August.
London showed us that the reauthorization of TRIA should be one of this country's highest priorities.
Yesterday during the House Financial Services Hearing, Secretary Snow seemed even more supportive of moving a TRIA in the coming weeks. Maybe in light of the recent attacks we all see there is a greater need for the reauthorization of TRIA sooner than later.
So...Mr. Chairman one of the things I would like to take away from this hearing today is a commitment and a timeline to get this done in the next few weeks. Every day this does not happen - our businesses, workers and economy are at risk.
Thank you.
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