Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2015
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, I wish to thank my colleagues who were here today. This is Senator Brown's first--just a day into the session as ranking member, and it is clear to all of us in the caucus that he is going to be a hard-working, conscientious ranking member, and I look forward to working with him and congratulate him on his new position. I thank my good friend Senator Crapo, who will be leaving as ranking member. We have the new ranking member and the former ranking member. I wish that were not the case but so be it. Senator Crapo has been a pleasure to work with on this bill and on so many other bills. I appreciate his hard work as well.
I rise today in support of reauthorizing the terrorism insurance program--a purpose that has brought me to the floor of this body several times in the last year.
We all know what a crucial piece of legislation TRIA is for our country. It should be reauthorized and reauthorized without political jockeying and attempts at point-scoring that we have seen through several months. But the good news is that TRIA will pass today and millions of Americans can breathe a sigh of relief, not just those who insure buildings and build buildings but people who work in buildings, office workers, restaurant workers, those who work at shopping centers, sports fans, those who care about having new stadiums. All of those depend on terrorism risk insurance.
We all know the history. After 9/11, when my city was devastated, people could not get financing to build new buildings. Insurance said the damage from terrorism, both loss of life and property damage, is so great that they were not going to insure without a Federal backstop.
In a bipartisan way we came together in 2002 and passed the TRIA bill. It helped propel the economy for the last decade. Because some on the other side are not sure this should be a government function, we could not make it permanent. It would be a lot better if we could, but we extended it for periods of years. It came to pass that it expired on December 31 of this last year, 2014.
In the Senate the bill I was proud to sponsor, helped by my cosponsors, Senators Murphy, Jack Reed, Tim Johnson, Menendez, Kirk, Heller, Crapo, Blunt, and Johanns, we anticipated no problem. The bill passed 93 to 4. Senators from Bernie Sanders to Ted Cruz voted for it.
Everyone thought it worked. It has not cost the government a nickel. It will pass easily. But unfortunately it got caught up in the machinations of the House. There were some on the House side who did not want terrorism insurance at all and some who were extremely reluctant. I will say this: I believe Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader McCarthy understood the importance of this. I worked with them in the latter months of last year to try and get a bill done. At the end of the day I was able to negotiate a bill with the chairman of the House banking committee who was at best a reluctant supporter of terrorism insurance and came up with a proposal that made some changes but kept the program intact.
It was a good compromise. It is the compromise that is before us today. It is a little different than the original bill. Instead of 7 years, it extends us for 6 years. The $100 million limit has been raised to 200. But still, the program can function very well under these proposals. I am very glad we have brought it to the floor very early in this session. I am glad it passed the House. I am glad that hopefully by the end of today it will be moving to the President's desk.
But there is one sour note in all of this; that is, the attempt--and I agree completely with my colleague from Ohio, the ranking member, Mr. Brown, that the idea to add extraneous measures to this provision is a wrong one. In my view, Dodd-Frank has strengthened the financial system, the banking system, and this country. The loose regulatory regime that was in place before, everyone agreed, helped cause the worst financial collapse we have had since the Great Depression.
There are some on the other side I understand who disagree with that view. That is something that will obviously be subject to debate. But to attach a provision at the last minute, which is what the House did at the end of last year, put it on the bill and said take it or leave it, is wrong and unfair. I think every fairminded person, whatever their view of Dodd-Frank is, would feel that we should debate an important amendment, any amendment, that would roll back parts of Dodd-Frank, given the fact that most everyone who has looked at it has thought it has been a success.
So that, plus a change in the NARAB provision, which my colleagues have mentioned, led to some problems. We on this Democratic side, while we do not like the rollback of Dodd-Frank in the end user provision, even last year were not prepared to stop the bill from going forward.
But the change our House Republican colleagues made was blocked by a Republican, Senator Coburn, and at the last minute, in the waning hours of the session, it was stymied. Today Senator Coburn, my dear friend whom I miss--and I wish him the best of health--is not here. He will not be here. He will not be here to object to the unanimous consent request that was made in a bipartisan way. So we were voting on this bill.
But the bottom line is simple. Republicans monkeyed around with the bipartisan compromise to earn a pound of flesh in what they knew was a must-pass piece of legislation. I am glad it will not kill the bill, but it never should have been there to begin with. The amendment that will be proposed will allow many on this side of the aisle who believe in TRIA but did not want to see at the last minute a rollback of Dodd-Frank, albeit one of the smaller rollbacks that has been proposed, to ride on the back of the important anti ter ror ism proposal.
Using must-pass unrelated legislation to chip away at Dodd-Frank piece by piece, even small pieces such as the end user provision, without debate or even in the committee process, is not how we should go about the business of considering important regulations on financial services. I join Ranking Member Brown in saying that should not happen in the future, and we should do everything to stop it from happening.
The good news is in this new session there were attempts by some on the Republican side to dilute the TRIA provisions further. From what I am told, Chairman Hensarling wanted to dilute it further, despite the negotiations we had. I thank our Republican leadership for not allowing that to happen, the Republican leadership in the House. So the same basic compromise that Chairman Hensarling and I negotiated in the wee hours of the last year's session will be on the floor today. TRIA will not be weakened any further. I am proud of the compromise Congressman Hensarling and I reached on the substance of TRIA. I am hopeful we can pass a bill without extraneous issues. I certainly believe TRIA should be signed into law as quickly as possible, because we all know that if we do not have terrorism insurance, it is going to greatly hurt our economy.
The damage has been minimized because most of the insurance clauses have 30- and 60-day notice provisions, so there has been no effect up to now. But if we dither any further, it will have serious effects on our rebounding economy, effects that I think no one who cares about jobs, who cares about working people, who cares about new construction in America would want to count.
I am glad TRIA will pass today. Our country needs it. I thank again all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in both Houses who worked hard to do this. I hope we will not find what happened today happening again, which is adding extraneous rollbacks to Dodd-Frank, without debate, without discussion, to future legislation.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, let me congratulate my friend from Ohio on his ascending to the ranking membership of the banking committee. I know he will do a very outstanding job there and we look forward to it.
Before we vote on the amendment before us, which I urge my colleagues to support, I wish to reiterate the importance of reauthorizing the TRIA program.
Undoubtedly, TRIA is a national priority, but it is particularly important to my home State of New York, one of the world's most targeted cities. After 9/11, I helped introduce and pass the program as a solution to what was a vexing problem in the insurance industry--how to calculate the risks associated with a terrorist attack. It was an issue we never had to deal with before. Construction and economic growth did not depend on whether developers could ensure their property against a terrorist attack. But, of course, 9/11 changed that as it changed so many things that day.
TRIA emerged as a responsible partnership between the public and private sector, with the government providing a backstop for private insurers. As far as new programs go, it has been extraordinarily successful.
Over the past decade, TRIA fueled the rebirth of Lower Manhattan. I see it every time I drive through it. One only needs to look at the skyline because we now have a new World Trade Center which has emerged from the shadow of the old towers. One need only ask the construction workers who have helped rebuild the area or look at the tens of thousands of jobs that came back after we rebuilt. The redevelopment of Lower Manhattan is first and foremost a symbol of our city and our Nation's resilience, but it is also a testament to how effective TRIA insurance has been at creating the right conditions for growing our economy and creating jobs in our cities. Passing TRIA today will keep the program alive and continue the remarkable growth we have seen in New York over the past several years. It will do the same for the skyscraper in Los Angeles, the stadium in Nebraska, the shopping center in Tennessee. So this program affects the whole country. Any large project depends on terrorism insurance.
I know there are some of my colleagues, particularly those in the House, who say this isn't the government's role. Well, government hasn't spent one nickel on this program. It has been fully reimbursed, and it is the government's role to foster jobs, to foster economic development, to step in not when the private sector can do the job well but when the private sector can't do the job. After 9/11 people weren't building, construction wasn't going forward not only in New York but in the country, because people could not get terrorism insurance. That is why I am glad TRIA will pass today so we can put the temporary expiration of the program behind us.
I am proud to say that attempts by the other body to either not pass the program or so limit it that it would be ineffective, which happened as recently as within the last few days, have failed. I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I thank Mike Crapo who was the ranking member of the banking committee, and I thank Speaker Boehner and Leader McCarthy for understanding the importance of passing this legislation. The negotiated bill between Chairman Hensarling and me preserves the terrorism insurance program largely intact--just about fully intact--to what it was before and has successfully worked. We did not back off on what we had to do.
As I have said before, it is regrettable that extraneous measures were attached. They should be openly debated. That is why I will be fully supporting the amendment that has been offered by the Senator from Massachusetts. But terrorism insurance will be renewed, and I am very glad for that.
I thank Senator Johnson, the former chairman; I thank Senator Brown, the present ranking member, and all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, particularly those who voted yes--from Bernie Sanders to Ted Cruz--who saw the worthiness and the necessity of this program, which will now go forward.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source