Congressman Wants for 120-day Extension for Further Discussions on TRIA with Senate

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee ,in a meeting of the Property Casualty Insurers Assn. of America (PCI) on Monday stated that he has asked his committee staff to prepare a bill asking for a 120-day extension for the federal backstop for terrorism coverage, which is due to expire at year's end.  
 
Speaking at the PCI meeting in Boston, Rep. Frank said he wants that option to be available to allow for more negotiations should the Senate's ongoing deliberations send a bill to the House that he considers inadequate. Currently, there are several key differences between the House-passed and Senate versions of TRIA, including the length of the extension, the program's trigger and the lines of coverage involved.  
 
For example, the Senate bill, which recently passed the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, would extend the backstop program for seven years, while the House-passed version calls for a 15 year extension. In addition, the House bill-which the Bush administration opposes-would add group life coverage to the program, while the Senate bill would not.  
 
Criticizing the Senate's approach, Rep. Frank said: "They pass a bill and they come to us and they say: 'We were barely able to do this, and if you make us change it, the whole thing will fall apart,'" he said. He characterized as "the strength of weakness" such a tendency to pass bills "that are better than nothing but not as good as they should be." 
 
If an agreement is not reached by the end of the legislative year, Rep. Frank said when senators say "you have to accept our version without change or the programs will expire, my answer will be: 'Oh, no, they won't because all you have to do is pass (this extension bill) and we'll see you between now and April."  
 
After Rep. Frank made his remarks, Joseph Annotti, PCI's senior vp-public affairs, said in a statement: "A series of short-term extensions would only plague the market with uncertainty, particularly at a time when insurers are negotiating their reinsurance contracts for 2008. The White House has sent a clear message that it would veto the House version of the bill and accept the Senate version. We hope that the leaders in the House and Senate can come to a quick agreement on a final bill that will put in place a long-term extension and that this critical program does not get mired in partisan politics."