Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2014
Floor Speech
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise today to shine a light on what has happened in the development
of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. I rise
today to talk about the fact that the chairman of our committee, of the
Financial Services Committee, did not want, at one point, to
reauthorize terrorism risk insurance at all, so he strung out the
possibility of negotiations for months.
He had decided that he was not going to reauthorize terrorism
insurance, and he will tell you that he offered to negotiate with me.
The only thing that I ever remember about a conversation that we had
was that my chairman said: I will only negotiate this once--starting
out in bad faith.
Time went on, and at some point in time, somebody convinced him that
to reauthorize the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program was an honorable
thing to do, that it was an American thing to do, that it was an
important thing to do. This program had been passed and signed on by
the President of the United States after 9/11.
The insurance companies, which insure risk, basically said they
cannot model terrorism acts. After 9/11, it was decided that we would
mandate that they insure but that we would provide a backstop, that we
would provide a backstop to ensure that we could rebuild our
communities, that we could rebuild these huge venues--these important
places in our lives--in the case of a terrorism attack.
When Mr. Hensarling finally decided that he would negotiate, he ended
up in negotiations with Mr. Schumer. Mr. Schumer and the Democrats
basically conceded and gave in on a lot of things. We supported,
originally, the Senate bill. We thought the Senate bill was a fine bill
that reauthorized terrorism risk for 7 years; and, of course, it had in
it the backstop after $100 million was spent by the industry, and it
basically did everything that we wanted it to have done just as it had
started out to do.
Mr. Hensarling came along, and he decided that he wanted to reduce
the time of the reauthorization. I don't know what he started out with,
but we ended up with 6 years instead of 7 years. We gave in.
I remember that he wanted bifurcation in the bill. He wanted to
distinguish between what kind of terrorist attack, how much it was
worth, and whether some of it was worse than others. He talked about
bifurcating in ways that you would distinguish between radiological,
biological, chemical, and others. We negotiated and negotiated, and,
finally, we got that out of Mr. Hensarling's mind about bifurcation.
Then the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) said that we needed to
reduce our backstop. And instead of backstopping after $100 million,
first he talked about $500 million, secondly he talked about $250
million, and finally we got him down to $200 million. And it is over a
5-year period of time. So we said, okay. We negotiated in good faith.
We will go along with the changes. We are willing to concede that you
have some different thoughts, and that is okay. Let's come together in
a bipartisan way and support the reauthorization of terrorism risk
insurance.
I was informed later on that my chairman came back to the table with
any number of things that had nothing to do with terrorism risk
insurance but had more to do with Dodd-Frank because, unfortunately, my
chairman and too many Members on the opposite side of the aisle are
intent on dismantling Dodd-Frank in any and every way that they
possibly can.
And finally, in those negotiations--the way it has been explained to
me--they agreed that they would allow him to add just one aspect of the
Dodd-Frank bill that had passed this House, to talk about how
agriculture and some other industries could lock in some prices so that
they could look forward to what a price would be on those commodities,
et cetera, that they would have to purchase.
This had nothing to do with terrorism insurance. So I am not saying
to the Members that you shouldn't vote for this bill. What I am
pointing out is that this is just another attempt
for the chairman to indicate in every way that he possibly can and take
advantage of any opportunity that presents itself to get a little
something in about Dodd-Frank.
What I worry about is not so much what he has put into TRIA; I worry
about what is going into the omnibus bill. I worry about the fact that,
in addition to this, there is an attempt--if it has not already been
done--to place into the omnibus bill a repeal of part of Dodd-Frank
that would prevent the biggest banks in America from taking advantage
of our consumers by using their hard-earned money to do risky
derivatives trading, which should be pushed out into their subsidiaries
and not have the FDIC in any way protect them in doing this.
So what I say is this. We should know and we should understand
exactly how the process works. We should know and understand what is
being done and why it is being done. If, in fact, there is so much care
and concern about TRIA reauthorization, we should have a clean bill
with nothing else in it. If we want to debate Dodd-Frank--what we don't
like about it, what we like about it--let's do it straight up. Let's
not slip it in at the eleventh hour at a time when our backs are up
against the wall, at a time when we are closing down this session. And
that is what I am opposed to.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to correct the
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry) who is inviting us to come
on over.
We have been inviting them, from day one, to come up with a terrorism
risk insurance bill reauthorization. So we have been inviting them to
come on over. We have had Members on the opposite side of the aisle who
have been pleading with them to come over. We have always had 100
percent support on the Democratic side for the reauthorization of
terrorism risk insurance, and the Republicans have basically held us up
and only negotiated at the last minute. Don't invite us to come over.
They can come on over with us.
I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B.
Maloney).
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman and Members, a special appreciation to Mr. King who has
worked very, very hard on both sides of the aisle to try and make sure
that we did not abandon our citizens in this country and leave them at
risk in case of a terrorist attack.
As I said before, Mr. Speaker, my chairman held us up for a long time
and would not negotiate. He finally came around, but this is typical.
He mentioned the flood insurance bill. We never could get him to
negotiate on that, and so we had to bypass him to make sure that we
didn't put our homeowners at risk. As he mentioned the Ex-Im bill, he
has only supported extension of that for a short period of time.
When it comes to helping our citizens and the least of them, it seems
as if my chairmen have problems with providing for the average citizen
on Main Street, but no problems when we talk about how we can enhance
the ability of the biggest banks in America and others to get richer
and richer. I thought it would be worthwhile to shed some light on
those comments that he made about Ex-Im and about flood and now about
TRIA.
We are glad, we are very happy that he finally saw the light, even if
he had to insert a little something in it, and he came around, and he
is now on the side of the people. This is about patriotism. This is
about American citizens. This is about protecting our cities and our
neighborhoods at a time when this country has to be sure that it is
focused on the safety and security of our citizens.
It is no time to dither around with whether or not we will rebuild
neighborhoods in these important venues in case of a terrorist attack;
so, yes, we have a compromise.
Mr. Speaker, I am so proud of the Democratic side of the aisle on
this. As I said, Democrats were fully supportive of the reauthorization
of the terrorism risk insurance program from day one. We have never
ever wavered. None of us have ever tried in any way to reduce the
program, to change the trigger, et cetera, but we did compromise as we
said.
Now, let me speak to the end user part of this. Yes, I worked with
Mr. David Scott and others because I have always said that on Dodd-
Frank, that we have a responsibility to implement what is in law, but I
always said I would support technical changes and I would support ways
that we work together to straighten out things that were not clear in
Dodd-Frank. I have never said that I would not be at the table to deal
with these kinds of technical changes, and I was.
When I got up today, I didn't speak about being against the bill. I
spoke about what has happened that led us to this point, why we are at
the eleventh hour, and the way that the negotiations went on.
Again, TRIA is important, and it should be reauthorized. I wish it
had been a clean bill. It is not, and I hope that we are not going to
have to have attempts to undermine Dodd-Frank in every bill that comes
along where my chairman sees an opportunity to try and slide something
in at the eleventh hour.
I hope that when we talk about negotiations and trying to get
together to compromise, to work on things that are in the best
interests of this country, that nobody will play games with us, no one
will lead us to the point where our backs are up against the wall at
the eleventh hour, but we will openly debate these issues, we will
listen to the pros and cons on these issues and that we hopefully will
come together in the best interests of all of the citizens.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman and Members, I am pleased that I had an opportunity to
be on the floor today managing this legislation on behalf of my caucus.
I am pleased that I was able to shine some light and create some
transparency on what has transpired over a long period of time. I am
sorry that it had to take this long. I am sorry that my chairman at
first refused to support reauthorization. He finally came around and
that is good. The negotiations took place and there was a compromise.
That compromise is not everything certainly that we would have wanted,
but at least it is a compromise that will allow terrorism risk
insurance program reauthorization. That is extremely important for all
of the reasons that you have heard on the floor here today.
I want to say to my friends on the opposite side of the aisle--some
of whom I talked with when it was unclear what the chairman was going
to do--I am so pleased that we have been able to relieve your anxiety
about what was going to happen. I know that many of you early on were
in support of the reauthorization of the terrorism risk insurance
program just as it had been framed in the Senate.
So now we are at the point where we have flushed out the fact that
this terrorism risk insurance program reauthorization is needed, that
businesses and our citizens deserve it, and they should have it. We
have also flushed out that adding to this legislation a Dodd-Frank
concern was not necessary. It is this kind of interference with the
process that oftentimes causes confusion. We would hope that this kind
of legislating would not continue.
Let's take up these issues in a way that they are clear, that they
can be debated, that we can hear from both sides of the aisle, we can
hear the pros and cons, without having to drag it out until the last
moment when we feel that you have the opposition up against a wall and
they have no choice but to accept whatever you have done because you
have a legitimate issue that is before us, even when that issue is
attached to something that has nothing to do with that main issue.
Having said that, I am going to move on because we still have work to
do as we move toward trying to make sure that we do not shut down this
government, that we have the omnibus bill to fund the government and to
keep it operating. I am going to move on to deal with the fact that
just as this was inserted, the end user provision was inserted in this
bill.
In the omnibus bill, we have an even more difficult situation to try
and resolve. As a matter of fact, we know that our citizens are at
great risk because there is an attempt to repeal an important part of
the Dodd-Frank legislation. There is an attempt to make sure that
somehow the biggest banks in America have an opportunity to use the
taxpayers' dollars to do risky trading and put the taxpayers at risk
one more time of having to bail out these institutions that have used
the taxpayers' money that was protected by FDIC, have used their money
to do this risky trading.
We simply ask in Dodd-Frank for some of these trades, for some of
these derivatives trading ideas, not to be placed in such a fashion
that they would cause us to have to say to our consumers and our
taxpayers, once again, we are going to have to bail out some big bank
because they have failed. We need to protect our consumers, we need to
protect our taxpayers. All they have to do is push out, push out these
derivatives into their subsidies where they don't have the taxpayers'
protection.
So I am going to be working on that. I am going to stand here today
and say to my chairman, I am going to ask for an ``aye'' vote on the
Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, and I am going to
vote for it. Will you work with me to pay attention to the omnibus bill
and help me to negotiate tonight to get out of that bill the risky
trading that is now being put back in the bill, the same bill that came
through our committee, that was written by Citicorp, that would allow
this to happen? Will you work with me to try and prevent this from
happening and prevent another bailout of the biggest banks in America
with taxpayers' dollars? I am going to support TRIA. Will the gentleman
support me getting rid of that in the omnibus bill?
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Ms. WATERS. Reclaiming my time, I simply asked the gentleman if he
would join me in helping, whether he was part of the negotiations or
not, as the chair of the Financial Services Committee, where this is
one of the biggest issues that we have been confronted with. I know
that you care enough about the consumers that you would not want them
to have to bail out another AIG, another big bank. I know that you
don't want that. I am simply saying that I am going to support the
reauthorization of terrorism risk insurance. Will the gentleman support
helping to get rid of that risky derivative trading opportunity that
has been placed into the omnibus bill by your side of the aisle?
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