Bill Nelson: “while some Members are still in the Chamber, I want them to understand an essential truth that a public which is averse…”

“while some Members are still in the Chamber, I want them to understand an essential truth that a public which is averse to raising taxes is all the more averse to hiking insurance premiums. Let me repeat that. We all know that the consuming public is averse to raising taxes, and we are sensitive to that fact, but equally or more sensitive is the issue of passing legislation that hikes insurance premiums, and that is what we are facing. We have an underlying bill that is trying to solve a problem. The problem is that terrorism has now become an insurance risk. In large part, this bill takes that risk off individual insurance companies and has the Federal Government assume a large part of that risk, so much so in one computation, it is 80 percent of the risk; in another computation it is 90 percent of the risk. In the very complicated formula of the bill, it has the responsibility of each insurance company with a de minimis amount that it would pay out in the case of a terrorism incident and, mind you, this is only a terrorism incident which is using conventional explosives. It does not include--because they are exempt from almost all insurance policies--the terrorism risk when the terrorist uses chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.”