November 11, 2019
The House Financial Services Committee passed legislation on a 57-0 vote to reauthorize the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program on October 31, sending the measure to the full House for consideration. The amended legislation scaled back the reauthorization term of the original bill from 10 years to seven years, and included a requirement for GAO to study cyber terrorism risks, and require biennial reporting from the U.S. Treasury Department that includes disaggregated data on places of worship.
According to the bill’s text, the cyber report should analyze overall vulnerabilities and the potential costs of cyberattacks to U.S. infrastructure, whether “cyber liability under a property and casualty line of insurance is adequate coverage for an act of cyber terrorism,” whether cyber risks can be adequately priced, and whether the risk-sharing mechanism under TRIA is appropriate for a cyber terrorism event; and set out recommendation on how Congress could amend the act to “meet the next generation of cyber threats.”
The Council strongly supports the measure and applauds Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R-NC) for their leadership on the issue. It’s unclear when the full House will take up the measure. Speaker Pelosi considers the bill must-pass legislation, but the program does not expire until the end of 2020. The Senate Banking Committee conducted a favorable hearing on the issue earlier this summer, and will most likely wait to consider the bill until at least Spring 2020.