Senate OKs Reversing Flood Insurance Hikes, But Obama Opposes, House Prospects Uncertain

[Purveyor]

Source: MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU


WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Thursday passed legislation to delay steep increases in homeowners’ federal flood insurance premiums, which were put in place less than two years ago to stabilize the federal flood insurance program.

The bill would delay the rate increases for four years while the Federal Emergency Management Agency completes an affordability study and certifies that new maps of flood zones are scientifically based. The vote was 67-32, with strong bipartisan support.

Its fate in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, however, was uncertain. House Speaker John Boehner has not said whether he will bring a companion bill to a vote. Boehner’s office has said only that the House “may consider changes to the law in the weeks and months ahead that both help homeowners and protect taxpayers.”

The flood insurance premium increases went into effect starting last year under the 2012 Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act. That law required FEMA to develop new rates for flood insurance premiums that more accurately reflected flood risks. The intent of the law was to stop losses to the National Flood Insurance Program, which has a $24 billion deficit.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/30/3903554/senate-oks-reversing-flood-insurance.html

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So when the next hurricane hits, the US taxpayer will get to subsidize the recovery of the beach front property owners, eh?

[okaawhatever]

1. Once again the Republicans prove they are the party of handouts. nt

[Igel]

2. More near-water housing than there are wealthy beach-front property owners.

I grew up SE of Baltimore near the Chesapeake Bay. We'd walk from my high school to go seining in a brackish marsh. Nobody wealthy there. Their doorsteps were perhaps 10 feet above high tide, possibly less.

They'd have trouble affording the insurance they need.

It's something I'm torn about: They choose to live in unsafe conditions, they should accept the burden of choosing to live in unsafe conditions. Sure, they'd have lost money if they sold their houses. They'd lose money if they weren't subsidized.

I would hope that the argument was conclusively lost in NOLA, though, as far as public policy is concerned. I don't like what the alternative would say about us as a nation, even though I actually not sure I agree with the decision reached.

Lots of things involving socializing risk. Many of them also entail privatizing profit or benefit.

[Nye Bevan]

3. Help the unemployed? No way. But oceanfront property owners? No problem. (nt)