Political Quotes

“I rise today to introduce the Flood Protection Fairness Act of 2011. This legislation will make three common sense changes to the National Flood Insurance Program, NFIP, to ensure that the program incentivizes local participation in the funding of flood protection infrastructure. The bill allows levees paid for with local tax dollars to qualify for the same discounted flood insurance rates as communities that rely on Federal tax dollars to build their levees. The bill allows Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, to calculate the value of a levee system in current dollars instead of using the uninflated cost of levee improvements completed years ago. This encourages local governments to fix problems as they arise. The bill allows areas protected by coastal levees to qualify for the same flood insurance rate zones as areas protected by riverine levees, provided they meet equivalent flood protection standards. The effect of these provisions is simple: local governments will be incentivized to help pay for the flood protection systems in their back yards. In this time of shrinking budgets we simply can't afford to ask the federal taxpayer to foot the entire bill for flood protection. Federal investments must be leveraged by local and private contributions. Current policy discourages this; so it's time to change the policy.…”