U.S. Department of the Treasury

(Archived Content)

President George W. Bush met with lawmakers to the White House this week to them to provide federal backing of terrorism insurance needed to jump- start stalled construction projects across the nation.   During the meeting with lawmakers, President Bush said, “There over $15.5 billion worth of construction projects which aren't going forward because they can't get insurance on their projects, can't insure the buildings or the project.  And therefore, there's 300,000 people whose jobs aren't going forward.  And this is a way for us to work together to put people back to work here in America.  It's a really important piece of legislation. And I appreciate the spirit of both Republicans and Democrats, senators and congressmen, to get this thing done before they go home.”  Secretary O’Neill, who attended the event at the White House with President Bush, recently said that, “I think the terrorist risk insurance legislation could have the quickest most profound effect on job creation in our country of anything we could imagine to do.  If I would identify one thing I'd like to have right now that can make a big difference to unleashing job creation in the United States, it's the Terrorist Risk Insurance Bill.  That's what we need to do, and we need to do it right now.