Mary Landrieu

I think, Mr. Miller, we really have to get this straight about these lower levels that are not living spaces.

We want to make sure that the rates that people are paying reflect the fact that they aren't living at the flood level.

It is not a coastal issue. It is not only a coastal issue. It is an interior issue. It is a national issue.

This program, I think people have to get a reset button on this program.

This fee is going to drive them out.

The Senators did not believe that the bill needed to be offset. We thought this was an emergency and we voted that way.

And let me put up my favorite map again, and ask FEMA, would you please produce a map for Alaska that looks just like this, and for Hawaii?

I am going to really be pushing this subcommittee, the whole Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Banking, and the Congress to get complete and accurate flood maps done before we engage in trying to rewrite a flood insurance…

But the law does say very clearly here that it has to be in plain English.

This is not just a Louisiana, Mississippi, coastal issue. The 450 counties that are most threatened produce 50 percent of the GDP of this Nation.

So I want to ask you, what has the President asked in his budget for flood maps?

We have to acknowledge we have built infrastructure we own. It is not going to go away anytime soon.

We have to protect those investments. But we also have to make sure that as we invest in the future, as we rebuild from disasters, we are making investments for future risk, not for old data.

Thank you, Administrator Fugate, for testifying this afternoon. You have one tough job, to implement this program, which is important to the whole Nation.

I am going to hold FEMA accountable for that.

This is a national issue of the highest priority.

Our work is not over until we build a better plan, and hopefully, we will lay some Congressional record to do that today.

After 2 years of arduous work and steadfast determination by a broad coalition of individuals, business groups, and community leaders, the President signed into law championed by many of us, but led by Senator Menendez, the Homeowners…

I believe it is imperative that Congress remain active and engaged to ensure this agency and its partners have the resources they need.

I find it puzzling, after working so hard to pass a law that specifically caps rate increases and encourages FEMA to strive to keep flood insurance affordable, that we are still hearing about outrageous increases that threaten to do more…

It is my goal to make sure we do not have any more Claudettes or Ricks slipping through the cracks.

I hope this spirit of bipartisanship will prove to be a catalyst for enactment of future bipartisan legislation.

But I am committed, as you all know, as a subcommittee chair of the committee that funds the flood maps, to continue to hold these hearings regularly in hopes that we can have accurate flood maps prior to 2017 when this program has to be…

A lot of that is in South Mississippi. Senator Cochran knows this.

The need, the stakes for accurate and reliable flood maps could not be greater.