NU Online News Service, June 29, 3:01 p.m.EDT

Congress today finally passed and sent to the Presidentlegislation providing long-term certainty for the National FloodInsurance Program.

The House voted just before 2 p.m., 373-52, to pass thelegislation, and the Senate voted a few minutes later, 74-19, tosend the legislation to President Obama.

Under the bill, the NFIP is reauthorized until Sept. 30,2017.

The flood portion of the bill is Title II of H.R. 4348, theSurface Transportation Extension Act of 2012.

The NFIP has been operating under temporary extensions sinceSept. 30, 2008.

Until mid-day Wednesday, it appeared that final action on theflood bill would be held up until July.

But then the leadership of both the House and Senate decided toreconcile legislation that had passed by the Senate BankingCommittee last September, and passed by the full House last July.They included the legislation in a single bill that extends thehighway transportation program until Sept. 2014 and retains thecurrent rate on student loans for one year.

The bill saw one final delay on Thursday due to demands by ninesenators, led by Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., that Sec. 107 of theSenate bill be removed from the legislation.

This section mandated that homeowners who live behind levees andother flood control structures buy flood insurance.

Under intense pressure, the Senate leadership agreed to removethe provision.

The final compromise merely allows Federal Emergency ManagementAgency to continue its ongoing analysis of how risk areas behindlevees should be treated under the NFIP.

Key highlights of the legislation include allowing FEMA toraise rates a maximum of 20 percent annually, as compared to 10percent annually under the current program.

It also mandates that rates for second homes, properties withrepetitive flood claims and commercial properties will go up 20percent over the next five years. That will be effective July1.

The bill reiterates FEMA's authority to buy private reinsuranceto back the program, which is aimed at reducing FEMA's reliance onTreasury loans to fund the program.

The reforms are projected to generate an additional $2.7 billionin new revenues over 10 years, according to the CongressionalBudget Office.

The bill also authorizes FEMA and the Government AccountabilityOffice to conduct a study on various options, methods, andstrategies for privatizing the NFIP.

Furthermore, it requires lenders to accept non-NFIP backedflood-insurance coverage provided by a private entity if thatcoverage meets all the same requirements as NFIP-backed floodinsurance.

Additionally, the legislation does not include languageexpanding NFIP insurance to include additional living expenses andbusiness interruption lines of coverage, provisions that had beendebated previously.

Language in the House bill that would force FEMA to return theapproximately 800,000 flood properties formerly serviced by StateFarm to the private sector was also deleted.

The bill does contain a compromise language on the controversialwind-v-water amendment.

The final provision, negotiated by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.,calls for hurricane data collected by the National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration in conjunction with engineering formulasto be developed by FEMA to double check flood-insurance claims ontotal-loss, “slab” properties.