Terrorism risk bill dies amid finger pointing

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) blocked the Senate from holding a final vote on Tuesday night to reauthorize the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), likely killing the bill for the year. 

Coburn, who had threatened to take the action, refused to agree to a unanimous consent request that would have set up a final vote on the measure that would have required a 60-vote majority for passage.

Senate leaders could have still sought to move the bill under normal Senate procedures, but that would have kept them in session for days.

They quickly blamed Coburn for killing a bill that Republicans and Democrats have been bitterly fighting over in Congress’s closing days.  

{mosads}“His objection is going to kill TRIA,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday night, referring to Coburn.

“If we change the bill it’s gone,” Reid said. “Amending the TRIA bill would just be another way to kill the TRIA bill.”

Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) released a statement after Coburn blocked the vote that criticized both Coburn and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) for the impasse.

Schumer and other Democrats opposed a provision included by Hensarling that they said would have weakend Wall Street regulations.

“Several weeks ago I warned Speaker [John] Boehner [R-Ohio] that if he followed Jeb Hensarling’s dangerous gambit, he risked killing terrorism insurance,” Schumer said in a statement. “Tonight, Sen. Coburn struck the final blow when he objected to bringing the bill to the floor.”

This story was updated at 10:21 p.m. on Dec. 16 and at 4 p.m. on Dec. 17.