The president of a conservative think tank is highly critical ofthe current effort to roll back flood insurance rate increasesimposed through a 2012 law, saying the reforms were “modest” and atest of whether federal legislators have the political will “to putits fiscal house in order.”

The comments by Eli Lehrer of the R Street Institute, a thinktank based in Washington, will be appearing in the Dec. 16th issueof the Weekly Standard.

He is commenting on legislation now being considered by theSenate that would defer the imposition of actuarial rate hikesimposed by a 2012 law while Congress and the executive branchcomplete an affordability study.

And, a Federal Court in Gulfport, Miss., is considering arequest for an injunction that would delay implementation of therate hikes until the affordability study mandated by the law iscompleted.

Lehrer said in his comments said that, on balance, the reforms“are incredibly modest.”

Lehrer said that more than half of the properties most at riskwon't see rate increases even if all of the reforms go into force.He said, “The private sector's role in flood insurance forhomeowners will grow only slightly,” adding that anyone “looking toprivatize flood coverage in a serious way will have to make furtherreforms” when authorization of the National Flood Insurance Programruns out in in 2017.

Still, Lehrer said, each year that subsidies for development inflood-prone areas continue, more people will move into harm's way.“As the backlash to the reforms demonstrates, once they are there,it is beyond difficult to get them out,” Lehrer said.

He said that “this has very real human costs” because undoingeven a modest phase-out of flood-insurance subsidies “almost surelywould mean plucking more people off of roofs with helicoptersduring the next massive flood or seeing more of them perish.”

And, Lehrer said “things appear certain to get worse. Oceanlevels have been rising for at least 10,000 years, and climatechange may accelerate this process in the future.”

Moreover, Lehrer said the real problem isn't the flood-insuranceprogram itself because the NFIP's $25 billion in unpayable debt“isn't a fiscal calamity in the context of a $3.5 trillion a yearbudget.

“But Congress' seeming inability to stick with modestreforms—even when they produce far more winners than losers—proveshow hard it is for the federal government to do anything thatimproves the nation's finances,” Lehrer said. “If members ofCongress can't save flood-insurance reform, it's hard to believethey'll ever be able to fix far larger fiscal ills,” he said.

At the moment, the Senate is considering whether to add S. 1610,the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act, as an amendment toS. 1867, the National Defense Reauthorization Act. The Senate willbegin taking that bill up Monday, and the Senate leadership isconsidering whether to add S. 1610 as one of perhaps 30 proposedamendments to the bill. It is must-do legislation with strongbipartisan support.

That is not to say that Lehrer doesn't think that the bill couldbe modestly changed.

“A handful of people of modest means who are unexpectedlyremapped into much higher risk areas may be socked with largerbills they can't afford to pay and should probably get sometemporary relief as long as they occupy their homes,” Lehrersaid.

More seriously, he said, a longstanding rate-setting practice ofignoring levees that don't provide protection against 100-yearfloods has resulted in some people behind “decertified” or“uncertified” levees being charged much higher rates than theyshould be. Lehrer noted that developers and others blocked aneffort to fix this, because it would have also required more ofthose behind the levees to purchase coverage.

“Other broader changes—even rate freezes for people of modestmeans who own their own homes—probably should be part of anegotiation,” he said.