In what may be his final act, retiring Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, insisted on changes to a bill reauthorizing a federal terrorism insurance program created after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
“If we change the bill, it’s gone,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, arguing that any amendment to the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, or TRIA, would require sending the bill back to the House of Representatives, which is on vacation until January 6.
So, the bill will expire at the end of the year.
The law was approved shortly after 9/11 to help insurance companies mitigate the costs of covering the aftermath of terrorist attacks.
Coburn opposed a specific rider made to what would have been a six-year extension of the act. Called the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers Reform Act, it would create a federal bureaucracy built to license insurance agents. Coburn wanted an opt-out provision for states, and he disagreed with the length of the extension.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with the terrorism risk insurance bill,” said Coburn.
Coburn said further that TRIA forces American taxpayers to “take all the risk.” He said on the Senate floor Tuesday that the insurance industry has made $40 billion as a result of TRIA in the last 12 years.
Rumors that an expiration of the law would lead the National Football League to cancel the Super Bowl were quashed Tuesday.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told CNN in an email Tuesday that the speculation over the Super Bowl being canceled is “not true.”
“The Super Bowl will be played,” he said.
Congressional Republicans have vowed to make a TRIA extension one of the first orders of business when the GOP-led Congress convenes in early January.