The Senate on Thursday delayed action until next week on legislation passed by the House that effectively scraps a flood insurance premium structure imposed by a 2012 law and replaces it with an entirely different scheme.

Industry lobbyists said the vote was postponed because several conservative Republicans objected to allowing H.R. 3370 on the floor under expedited procedures. All Democrats agreed to prompt action under a so-called “hotlining procedure,” but several Republicans objected. The Senate is off today.

They did so despite the fact there is strong support from Republicans in coastal states. For example, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said “both the Senate and now the House have come together in a major, bipartisan way” to fix the NFIP.”

Vitter said the House bill is stronger and more significant [than the Senate bill, “mostly because the reforms are permanent, and it passed by a huge margin. The Senate must vote on this bill as soon as possible, and the only realistic way that will happen is if Sen. [Harry] Reid, D-Nev., Senate majority leader, schedules floor time for the bill.”

During the House floor debate, some of the rhetoric was over the top. Citing continued comments by Republicans about the growing national debt, and the “financial bankruptcy that is plaguing or potentially plaguing our country,” Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., who represents New Orleans, said there was a greater problem.

Richmond said there is so much discussion about financial bankruptcy “that we start to believe it and we miss one thing, that we're on the verge of a moral bankruptcy in this country.”

“When you talk about homeowners who played by the rules, saved their money, bought a piece of the American dream, and then all of a sudden, years if not decades later, we come back with a with a well-intentioned bill but that had unfortunate, unintended consequences that would strip the American dream and homeownership right from under them,” he continued. “And then, the question becomes to this Congress, what do you do about it?”

But, the House floor debate did expose fissures in Republican ranks.

During the debate on the bill, Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, said Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee proposed four alternatives to the bill ultimately passed by the House. Neugebauer, who heads the FSC's Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, disclosed that the last proposal from FSC Republicans for a bill that included an eight to 10-year phase-in and nearly a two-year affordability cap of $5,000.

“Unfortunately, each one of these proposals were rejected because they fell short,” in favor of proposals that maintain subsidies indefinitely. “That's unfortunate because maintaining these subsidies hurts everyone in the long run. It hurts taxpayers by putting them on the hook for billions of dollars in subsidies, it hurts the flood insurance program by easing its path toward insolvency and it hurts homeowners by encouraging them to build in areas that jeopardize their lives and their properties.”

And, while not allowed to speak during the time-limited floor debate, Rep. Candace Miller, R-Mich., who represents a district in the Michigan Peninsula and in the last Congress introduced legislation that would phase out the NFIP, issued a statement blasting the bill.

She also called on Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R), “to opt the state out of the program altogether, and instead seek a state or private alternative that stops forcing Michigan homeowners to serve as ATM machines for the rest of the nation.”

Miller said the NFIP “is hopelessly in debt,” over $25 billion, because politics is responsible for setting rates, not actuarial cost. “As a result, too many Americans across this nation are paying rates far below what actual risk would dictate in the marketplace while others, including many who I represent, are being forced to pay into a program that they do not need or want to help subsidize lower rates for other favored groups whose risk is far greater,” she added.

The House bill limits the yearly increase to 18 percent per year. It replaces language in the 2012 law mandating implementation of actuarial rates for all NFIP policies over 4 or 5 years, depending on the type of structure insured. The Senate bill, passed Jan. 30, merely delays implementation of the original Biggert-Waters bill for four years.

The House bill also instructs FEMA leaders, who oversee the federal flood insurance program, to “strive to minimize the number of policies with annual premiums that exceed 1 percent of the total coverage provided by the policy.”

It's short of the absolute cap some Democratic lawmakers had sought, but at least puts Congress on record that FEMA, as it moves to price premiums to reflect actual risk, should find ways to avoid charging more than $2,000 on a $200,000 flood insurance policy.

Special Reports /

Senate Delays Action on Flood Bill

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