[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 127 (Wednesday, October 2, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S9807]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               HOMELAND SECURITY AND TERRORISM INSURANCE

  Mr. GRAMM. Finally, seeing I have another colleague come to the 
floor, I want to say something about two issues that are before us that 
I am frustrated with, as, I am sure, are many of my colleagues. But in 
both cases, our problem is the power of special interests as pitted 
against the public interest. We are trying to do a homeland security 
bill, and it is not easy because to change the way Government does 
business is to take on a powerful political constituency, the 
Government employee labor unions. They are organized and they are 
active. We are all aware that we are having an election next month. 
Members are being forced to choose between national security and 
political security, to choose whether we are putting business as usual 
and work rules negotiated between the Government and unions above 
protecting the lives of our citizens.
  It is frustrating to me that even when people's lives are on the 
line, powerful special interests can wield the kind of power that the 
Government employee labor unions have been able to bring to bear on 
this issue.
  I had always thought when we started this debate that when we were 
talking about protecting the lives of Americans, we were going to give 
the President the benefit of the doubt. But at least to this point we 
have not.
  A second issue is terrorism insurance. I was with the President 
yesterday. Many of our colleagues were there. He was talking about $16 
billion of projects, 300,000 construction hard-hat jobs that we were 
not creating because people were afraid to build high-profile projects 
because they cannot buy terrorism insurance. The President has asked us 
to move forward on a bill.
  In October, the House had already acted on the bill and, on a 
bipartisan basis, Senator Dodd, Senator Sarbanes, Senator Enzi, and I 
worked out a compromise which was agreed to by the Treasury that had a 
compromise on the issue of: Can you sue somebody who is a victim of 
terrorism for punitive damages?
  The President's view is very strong on the subject; that is, when 
somebody has been the victim of terrorism, it is like someone coming 
onto a hospital ship to prey on them by filing lawsuits against them. 
Lawsuits against terrorists is fine, but for victims of terrorism there 
shouldn't be punitive damages.
  We worked out a compromise on a bipartisan basis. But the plaintiff's 
bar came out against that compromise, and, as a result, we have never 
been able to do anything from that point on.
  Again, it is the case where there is a powerful special interest that 
is preventing us from promoting the public interest.
  I am hopeful in the remaining days of this session--and I believe 
unless the end point is changed, today is Wednesday, so tomorrow is 
Thursday; we are probably not going to do a lot of work on Friday or 
Monday. Then we are planning to adjourn Thursday, or Friday, or 
Saturday at the latest--if we are ever going to do something on 
homeland security and terrorism insurance, we had better get on with 
it.
  The amazing thing is that it is apparently going to be very easy for 
us to pass a resolution giving the President the power to go to war. I 
support that because I think American security interests are at stake. 
We can do that because there is no well-organized, powerful political 
special interest group that supports Saddam Hussein. But we can't do 
homeland security and we can't do terrorism insurance because there are 
organized, effective, powerful special interest groups that oppose what 
we are trying to do. I hope we can overcome that hurdle. I hope in the 
process we can pass these two important bills.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Edwards). The Senator from Alaska.

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