WASHINGTON—An effort to delay federal flood insurance rate hikes on “grandfathered” properties for five years was rejected by the Senate late Tuesday.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., vowed to continue her battle to stop the rate increases after the Senate rejected her efforts to have a vote on a bill that would have amended a water resources bill currently being considered by the Senate.

She was battling on behalf of constituents facing large increases in premiums levied under the National Flood Insurance Program.

A bill in 2012 to extended NFIP imposed certain reforms and allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to substantively increase fees over time as a means of bringing revenues and expenditures in line. Currently, the program owes the federal government $30.4 billion.

In a weekly newspaper in Plaquemines County, La., an area insurance agent cited a home in Jesuit Bend, La., currently paying $633 annually for flood insurance will now have to pay $28,554 for the coverage, starting in 2014, under the 2012 Biggert-Waters Act.

“In Plaquemines alone, we have approximately 5,000 buildings outside of 100-year protection,” the agent, Bill Bubrig wrote. “These 5,000 building were built at or above the NFIP requirement when constructed. Without grandfathering these properties/homes will become too expensive to insure and impossible to sell.”

Landrieu's amendment to delay the rate hikes was rejected by an unanimous consent agreement by Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa.

“This is an issue that isn't going to go away, and I'm not giving up finding a solution to fix the flawed Biggert-Waters bill, which I expressed concerns about even before its passage,” Landrieu said.

In the coming days, Landrieu says she will “be introducing a comprehensive bill that will allow people in Louisiana and across the country to live securely along water and be able to purchase affordable flood insurance.” She says the NFIP should be financially sound, but that “should not be done on the backs of Louisiana's families living along our coast, many of whom get up before the sun rises and do not come back until it is dark.

“They deserve a vote, and they deserve a solution. I'm not done fighting to find one,” Landrieu said.

Ray Lehmann, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, a Washington conservative think tank, says, “We are pleased to see that a decade of hard work to achieve substantial reform of the NFIP won't be undone by a unanimous consent amendment process to an unrelated bill.”

As to the plight of residents of Plaquemines Parish, Lehmann said that the combination of grandfathering and FEMA's total negligence in keeping flood maps up to date has created the problem.

“Opponents of flood reform are now throwing out these scary figures that a property 6 feet below the base flood elevation might eventually be asked to pay $25,000 in premiums,” Lehmann says. “But that ignores the obvious — a property six feet below should not be eligible for flood insurance! The rate increases are phased in to allow for the property to either be elevated or bought out and relocated.”

Special Reports /

Effort to Delay Some NFIP Rate Hikes Dies in Congress, For Now

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