John Kerry: “Mr. President, I am not yet about to send to the desk the amendment that I am contemplating in the hopes that a meeting…”

“Mr. President, I am not yet about to send to the desk the amendment that I am contemplating in the hopes that a meeting that we have scheduled shortly with a couple of the principals dealing with this issue will bear fruit. It is my hope that we will be able to reach some kind of accommodation. But I want to try to share with my colleagues a little bit of the background as to why I am considering an amendment at this moment, and what the stakes are for the Senate and for all of us as representatives of taxpayers. The amendment that I am contemplating sending to the desk is an amendment with respect to flood insurance reform. As every Member knows, over the course of the last years we have seen increased amounts of damage being done by earthquakes, storms, flooding, hurricanes, and so forth. In 1968, in recognition of the very large sums of money that the U.S. Government was paying on an annual basis to make up for bad choices people were making about where they would live, Congress created in 1968 the flood insurance program, the National Flood Insurance Program.”