Political Quotes

“I would like to thank my good friend from Illinois for the time. She has been a wonderful advocate on behalf of homeowners and renters of the United States, and especially in my area. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of this bill to reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program as administered by FEMA through the year 2016. Granted, the bill before us is not perfect, but homeowners and businesses in my congressional district--that stretches from Miami Beach all the way down to Key West--deserve to see stability brought to this vital program. Since September of 2008, the NFIP has had 11 short-term extensions, and just last year alone the program was allowed to lapse three times. That is inexcusable. These lapses meant that FEMA was not able to write new policies, renew expiring policies, or increase coverage limits. And for a program that insures over 90 percent of all flood insurance policies nationwide--40 percent of those being in my home State of Florida--this is rightly inexcusable. Just as bad, for each of the 53 days that the NFIP was lapsed, over 1,400 homebuyers who wanted to purchase homes located in floodplains were unable to close on their home purchases.…”