Heavily Indebted National Flood Insurance Program Renewal Making For Strange Political Bedfellows

[hatrack]

A Congressional deadlock over flood insurance highlights the difficulty of enacting the type of reforms urged last week in a U.S. government report on climate change -- even for Democrats, who embraced the report’s findings. The heavily indebted National Flood Insurance Program, which provides subsidized coverage for homes in flood-prone areas, is scheduled to expire at midnight on Friday after months of debate over long-term changes. Both the House and Senate passed a one-week extension on Thursday night. That extension must now be signed by President Donald Trump.

Chief among the sticking points is a Republican-led effort to cut the subsidies, something that experts say would be consistent with the message in the National Climate Assessment released on Nov. 23. In that document, a consensus report by U.S. government agencies, scientists warned that coastal communities must adapt more quickly to accelerating flooding and sea-level rise -- including restricting development in at-risk areas, and in many cases leaving them altogether.

“Democrats talk a good game when it comes to the urgency of climate change, but then they turn right around and vote for the National Flood Insurance Program, a program that subsidizes building in known flood plains,” Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a leading advocate for cutting the subsidies, said by email.

EDIT

Democrats defended their support for below-rate flood insurance. “We subsidize crop insurance. We certainly subsidize the oil companies...The concept of protection [for homeowners] doesn’t rankle me,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a state that depends heavily on flood insurance, said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s really unfair to strip them from coverage.” Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, which has some of the nation’s most flood-exposed communities, said more realistic insurance rates aren’t the only way to prepare vulnerable areas for climate change. He said he wants Congress to provide more funding so officials can buy homes from people who want to leave.

EDIT

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-29/flood-policy-standoff-tests-democrats-promise-of-climate-action?srnd=climate-changed

[3Hotdogs]

1. The program should be maintained but with the provision, you're out after the second claim.

Second claims should include a buy-out/demonish offer and no option to renew coverage.