S.C.R. No. 60
 
 
 
 
SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
  WHEREAS, State insurance regulators have ensured the
  solvency of this nation's insurers, implemented a comprehensive
  consumer protection scheme, licensed insurance companies and
  agents, and supervised other areas of the insurance business for
  over 150 years; and
         WHEREAS, State regulators oversee thousands of insurance
  companies and millions of agents and respond to more than three
  million inquiries per year; and
         WHEREAS, State insurance regulation has been largely
  successful and effective, has adapted to changes in the
  marketplace, and encourages innovation; and
         WHEREAS, State legislatures and state insurance regulators
  are more responsive to the needs of consumers and are more aware of
  and responsive to the unique characteristics and demands of
  individual states; and
         WHEREAS, Many states, including Texas, regularly update
  state insurance laws and have recently enacted legislation that
  enables the insurance industry to more effectively respond to
  changing market conditions; and
         WHEREAS, Governors, state legislators, and insurance
  commissioners have acknowledged the need to streamline and simplify
  insurance regulation and are working to enact reforms to remedy the
  unnecessary differences in state laws and eliminate requirements
  that prevent insurers and agents from serving the needs of
  insurance consumers in an effective and timely manner; and
         WHEREAS, The 109th Congress considered, and the 110th
  Congress is expected to consider, legislation that would establish
  an entirely new insurance regulatory system at the federal level
  and threaten the continued viability of the state system in the
  process; and
         WHEREAS, A new and untested federal insurance regulatory
  system would almost certainly be more remote and politicized and
  less accessible and responsive to consumers than the current state
  system; and
         WHEREAS, If enacted by congress, these proposals would
  bifurcate insurance regulation between the states and the federal
  government, conflicting with the state system of consumer
  protections and financial surveillance, as well as inevitably
  causing a loss of jobs, taxes, fees, and other vital and necessary
  state revenues needed to effectively regulate the insurance market
  and provide revenues to support residual market programs; and
         WHEREAS, Insurance companies paid $13.8 billion in annual
  premium taxes to the states in 2004, and a federalization of
  insurance regulation could put these payments and other fees and
  revenues at risk; now, therefore, be it
         RESOLVED, That the 80th Legislature of the State of Texas
  hereby respectfully declare to the Congress of the United States
  the legislature's commitment to maintaining the states as the sole
  regulators of the business of insurance and to supporting state
  efforts to streamline, simplify, and modernize insurance
  regulation; and, be it further
         RESOLVED, That the 80th Legislature of the State of Texas
  hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to
  oppose any proposed law that would establish a federal insurance
  regulatory system or otherwise alter the McCarran-Ferguson Act;
  and, be it further
         RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
  copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, the
  speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the
  senate of the United States Congress, to the members of the United
  States House Financial Services Committee, to the members of the
  United States Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee,
  to the United States secretary of the treasury, and to all the
  members of the Texas delegation to the congress with the request
  that this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional
  Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of
  America.
 
 
 
 
 
  ______________________________ ______________________________
     President of the Senate Speaker of the House     
 
         I hereby certify that S.C.R. No. 60 was adopted by the Senate
  on May 8, 2007, by the following vote:  Yeas 28, Nays 3.
 
 
  ______________________________
  Secretary of the Senate    
 
         I hereby certify that S.C.R. No. 60 was adopted by the House
  on May 23, 2007, by a non-record vote.
 
 
  ______________________________
  Chief Clerk of the House   
 
 
 
  Approved:
 
  ______________________________ 
              Date
 
 
  ______________________________ 
            Governor