A key House Democrat today launched what is expected to be an arduous battle for extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act by castigating the White House for lack of attention to the bill and the House Republican leadership for inaction.
The comments on TRIA by Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa.., second-ranking minority member of the House Financial Services Committee, were made against the background of imminent release of a critical Treasury report evaluating the market impact of TRIA, the federal backstop for catastrophic terrorism events.
Similar concerns were also voiced by the Coalition To Insure Against Terrorism in a letter dated June 8 sent to President Bush. That group primarily represents real estate interests.
"Notwithstanding the encouraging signs that TRIA is working as intended, the members of CIAT are increasingly anxious about the prospect that TRIA will not be extended beyond the Dec. 31, 2005 expiration date," the letter said.
"With TRIA set to expire at year-end, there is no evidence to suggest that insurance markets will be able to provide adequate insurance against catastrophic acts of terrorism without a federal insurance backstop," the letter said.
The bill was passed in late 2002 and includes a provision for the Treasury Department to report by June 30 to Congress on the bill's effectiveness and comment whether an extension is necessary.
In his comments as keynote speaker at the 2005 session of the Risk and Insurance Management Society on Capitol Hill, Rep. Kanjorski warned that the industry might have to accept a series of six-month extensions in order to win the two-year transition projected to develop a private market for terrorism risk coverage.
The property-casualty insurance industry has made extension of the bill, hopefully for two years, its legislative priority for this year.
In his comments today, Rep. Kanjorski cited House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, as the primary reason a TRIA extension has not moved through the House so far. "The delay is there because of someone named DeLay," Rep. Kanjorski said. The bill the industry wants has been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, and Chris Dodd, D-Conn.
Rep. Kanjorski noted that one provision of the bill he particularly supports would add group life as one of the types of insurance that the federal government would provide a backstop for. Adding group life, he said, makes "good sense."
In his comments, Rep. Kanjorski also blamed the Bush administration for inaction on the bill, saying leadership from the administration is "totally absent." Amongst the administration deficiencies, Rep. Kanjorski said, is the large number of vacant spots the administration has declined to fill amongst appointed posts at the Treasury Department.
Rep. Kanjorski said there is nobody at the appointed level at Treasury to take the bill and marshal it through Congress. He said he hasn't heard from President Bush on the bill whatsoever, and told his audience, "You may talk to the president more often than I do on TRIA."
He noted that Rep. DeLay has proposed a six-month extension, something which failed to muster Democratic support when proposed during the dying days of the last session of Congress, calling that "the same as nothing at all."
He warned that if the industry is successful in getting only a six-month extension from this Congress on TRIA, that will make it harder to get a longer extension next year.
Rep. Kanjorski voiced concern that the private sector hasn't come up with a private market solution to the TRIA problem and suggested that the industry may have to live with a series of multiple extensions for two years.
He cited the fact that TRIA extension is not a pressing issue with the administration, such as the budget or war in Iraq. "We are not going to get a TRIA extension by public demand; we're going to get it by forceful advocacy." That's "because of the delay of DeLay," he said.
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