HR 4634 Passed in House – TRI Reauthorization

Yesterday the House passed HR 4634, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2019. The vote was a strongly bipartisan vote of 385 to 22.  The bill is likely to be taken up in the Senate under their unanimous consent process; this would mean no debate and no actual vote.

The version considered by the House has yet to be published (nor has the Committee report on the amended version of the bill), but the Committee web site provides a copy of the amended language. The revised bill does make an attempt to address the cyber concerns that I expressed (okay, almost certainly not as a result of my blog post) in my introduction blog. Instead of including provisions specifically addressing potential cyberattack effects, it requires a study of the potential effects of the problem and a report to Congress on how future amendments of the bill should address those potential effects.

Rep McHenry (R,NC), the Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, commented on the potential need for these provisions during yesterday’s debate:

“What I am concerned about is this: I am concerned a large-scale cyberattack could pose these same hidden risks to insurers and to the market, since we don’t fully understand the effects of a large-scale cyberattack and how that would play out today.

“Moreover, the digital capabilities of our adversaries only continue to grow. Just look at Russia. In 2015, a Russian cyberattack shut down Ukraine’s power grid for as long as 6 hours. If it is not Russia, it is China, Iran, North Korea. State sponsors of terror want to cause as much damage to the United States as they can. And that is not just the government’s fear or utilities, it is every part of our economy.

“It is our duty to make sure that this program is adaptable to respond to any event that could become a reality.”