Hon. Michael G. Oxley: “just in conclusion, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his kind words, and all the members on the committee who…”

“just in conclusion, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his kind words, and all the members on the committee who worked so hard on this, particularly Mr. Kanjorski and Mr. Frank on that side, and many, many others. Mr. Speaker, when we had the hearing on this legislation with the Treasury Secretary after the Treasury report came out, I made the comment it would be irresponsible on the part of this Congress if we did not address the issue of terrorism risk insurance. It was far too important to ignore; it had too many implications for our economy going forward. And Mr. Frank was right when he said this is not about the insurers. It is about the insured, the people out there creating jobs and making our economy work. And it is also a recognition that an act of terrorism is almost impossible to try to get actuarial information on to be able to set rates. It is virtually impossible. Anybody that knows anything about insurance knows that it is virtually impossible to work that in to any kind of an insurance scheme in which they would charge premiums. So that is why we needed this bottom-up, and that is why we need to continue this bottom-up. And the idea is to transition during that period to a market-based solution, creating the incentive for insurance companies to create a pool, not unlike what the Brits have, the pool-rate concept, so you have this pool that could guard against losses.…”