Political Quotes

“section 12017 of H.R. 2419, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, amends the Federal Crop Insurance Act. Among other things, the changes provide that, during periodic renegotiations with USDA's Federal Crop Insurance Corporation regarding the standard reinsurance agreement for the FCIC's crop insurance program, approved insurance companies may consult with each other, and collectively with the FCIC. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I would like to provide a bit of background, and to sound a cautionary note. For a number of years, insurance companies participating in providing reinsurance to the FCIC--that is, providing back-up insurance to the insurance being provided by the FCIC--did indeed consult with each other, and collectively with the FCIC. This occurred most recently in the 1997 renegotiation. In fact, the insurers apparently used a common agent to negotiate the terms of the agreement on their behalf. I understand that that experience may have led USDA's Risk Management Administration, which runs the FCIC, to begin reconsidering whether joint discussions were a good idea from a competitive standpoint, in achieving the best result with the taxpayers' dollars that the FCIC was spending in the reinsurance marketplace.”