Tria Program Reauthorization Act of 2026

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, let me thank Chairman Flood and Ranking Member Cleaver of the subcommittee and certainly our full committee ranking member, Ms. Waters, for their work with the majority to craft this extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act.

The reauthorization of this program is important. I thank, on a bipartisan basis, those who have worked to bring it to fruition.

Every Member of this body, Mr. Speaker, including you, my friend, knows where they were on September 11, 2001. That day changed everything, including how America thought about risk. Before those attacks, the private insurance market handled terrorism risk like any other. After 9/11, no insurer could price it or absorb it alone.

Congress subsequently created TRIA in 2002. The purpose of TRIA is spelled out in the original law. Section 101(b) states that TRIA is designed to provide for ``a transparent system of shared public and private compensation for insured losses resulting from acts of terrorism in order to protect consumers.''

That is the goal here, to give policyholders access to the financial protection and confidence they need to build skyscrapers, sports venues, and malls, and employ workers that drive our economy.

Each reauthorization is an opportunity to look at what is working and what is not and to look at what adjustments are needed to keep delivering market certainty and stability.

As time has passed, quirks in TRIA have appeared that make it harder for those policyholders to get their claims paid quickly and fully and left insurers adrift in the lurch of a clunky will-they/won't-they certification process.

Mr. Flood's bill today proposes a modest set of improvements that will add clarity to the certification process and make it easier for insurers to pay their claims in a timely manner and easier for policyholders to recover financially when they need those payments the most.

Throughout this process, we have sought feedback from Members on both sides of the aisle and others as we have moved to get out in front of this program's scheduled expiration in December 2027 so that everyone would have an opportunity to review and debate the modest improvements contained in this measure.

The reality is that terrorism is now, unfortunately, a permanent fixture of American life. Whether you are in Los Angeles, the Big Apple, or Little Rock, this risk does not respect geography, and it does not go away.

I urge my colleagues to support Mr. Flood's bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I agree with his assessment.

It is true that TRIA was designed to create certainty, not doubt, for our businesses, indeed our economy at large after something unthinkable takes place.

It requires insurance companies to make stand-alone terrorism coverage available to their clients, who can choose to purchase it or not in addition to their traditional business insurance coverage.

That was the system we devised more than two decades ago to provide continuity after a large-scale terrorism event, as well as to provide businesses the fastest path to economic recovery.

It simply would not work within the spirit of the law or the confines of this reauthorization to pursue pathways that interrupted that system and flow of that important post-event recovery capital.

I am very pleased, as my friend from Missouri knows, that Ranking Member Waters and I have worked to include some small but important reforms to the post-event process to make sure that policyholders can get their claims paid more fully and quickly, the way that TRIA intended.

Simply put, TRIA should always be about putting affected policyholders first, and that is represented in the bill text that we are voting on today.

I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I echo agreement with Ranking Member Cleaver's words today as well as the chairman of our subcommittee, Mike Flood, and his hard work on both sides of the aisle to bring forward this 7-year reauthorization of this critically important program well in advance of its expiration.

Mr. Speaker, what I love about this is the majority and the minority, working together for the benefit of the American economy, are getting this done well in advance of any loss or gap in coverage.

We know it is important. We treasure the fact that we are in the semiquincentennial year of our country's life, 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, but everybody in the back of their mind on this House floor in the coming weeks will be thinking about another anniversary, one that we are not celebrating with fireworks or bands or parades, and that is, sadly, the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks on Washington, New York, and our country at large. It makes us sad, and we reflect on those who we lost, the claims that we are still paying, the families that are still mourning.

This bill is an important reminder that we have an obligation to our country to do things right, to be thinking about the future, to be thinking about our Nation's economic growth, prosperity, and the safety of the American people.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to answer this call today and support this 7-year reauthorization of our Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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