Hon. Michael G. Oxley: “let me first recognize the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella) and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) for…”

“let me first recognize the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella) and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) for their leadership on this very, very important issue. The whole concept of taking terrorist assets that have been seized and compensating victims seems so elemental to our system of justice that it has clearly been one that has been incorporated in this legislation, both in the House and in the Senate; and I would say without the leadership of these two gentlemen, we would not be here today. As we know, the House passed our version of the terrorism insurance legislation back last year. The Senate finally moved in June. We just appointed conferees right before the August recess. We are ready to go to work on this side. I will say I have had some discussions with participants from the other body. They seem ready and prepared to move forward. There is no reason why we cannot get this legislation, this conference committee work, completed and on the President's desk as quickly as possible, I would hope certainly by the end of September. That is not an unrealistic possibility. I just saw a study the other day that the amount of construction sites that are standing idle and the amount of money in those construction sites now is over $10.5 billion. That is an awful lot of jobs that we are losing as a result of this.”