By Emily Stephenson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Tuesday called on lawmakers to reauthorize a federal terrorism insurance program, saying they should not tie its approval to consideration of proposed changes to unrelated Wall Street reforms.
The federal insurance program was created after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and is set to expire at the end of the year. Businesses, owners of sports stadiums and other groups that insure against terrorist acts have lobbied for its renewal.
The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly in July to extend the program, called the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. But negotiations with the House of Representatives stalled when Republicans tried to include changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law in the extension bill.
Lew said in a letter to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who has been negotiating over the insurance program, that lawmakers should quickly approve a clean extension without the unrelated regulatory changes.
"Time is running short to head off an unnecessary, unprecedented and disruptive lapse of the program," Lew said in the letter, which was obtained by Reuters.
The program was created to restore confidence after the 2001 attacks, when some companies stopped offering insurance against terrorist threats to commercial buildings.
It has been reauthorized twice but the insurance, which kicks in after losses from an attack exceed a set amount, has never been triggered.
The House bill, which extends the program for six years, is expected to be debated on Wednesday, according to the House Rules Committee.
It includes a controversial tweak to a Dodd-Frank provision that requires participants in swap trades that do not go through a third-party clearinghouse to post collateral. The House Republicans' change would exempt certain agricultural and energy companies from this rule.
Republicans and some Democrats support the change, but its passage is unlikely in the Senate, which has been hesitant to re-open the Dodd-Frank law.
The bill also includes a provision that was approved by the Senate that would create a designated seat on the Federal Reserve for someone with community banking experience.
A more popular tweak to Dodd-Frank that would loosen capital requirements for insurance companies was not in the terrorism insurance package and appeared set to move as a separate bill. The Senate approved that change in June.
(Reporting by Emily Stephenson; Editing by Sandra Maler and Cynthia Osterman)