TRIA provides federal insurance backup for catastrophic losses suffered in a terrorist attack, which the insurance industry underscores is necessary because such attacks are so expensive and hard to predict.
Representative Peter King (R-Long Island) is pressing fellow House members to support a 15-year extension. A current draft bill offered by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., would give the program another 10 years. The bill is set to expire by the year-end.
"The World Trade Center site will take years to complete and it is essential that a federal backstop remain in place to provide economic stability to this sensitive and critical market," King said in a written appeal to fellow New York lawmakers. Five office buildings planned to replace the fallen towers are scheduled to be completed between 2011 and 2013.
King stated that the market does not have the means to cope with the possibility of a catastrophic attack directed at the United States.