Kit Bond: “Let me say, and I believe I heard my friend from Massachusetts say, that we have been engaged in fruitful discussions…”

“Let me say, and I believe I heard my friend from Massachusetts say, that we have been engaged in fruitful discussions about how we reform the flood insurance program, because the flood insurance program is vitally important in terms of those people who live and work in the flood-prone areas or the coastal areas which are subject to flooding and other devastation from water and wind. I believe that there are three main problems: No. 1, the fund does not have enough participants in it. No. 2, because, when the fund was established in 1975, there was a grandfather clause to protect those structures which existed prior to the passage of the law in 1975. The premiums paid into the flood fund for those homes was not adequate to carry the risk that those homes incurred. Thus, the fund has been put into a difficult condition because of the structures in place prior to 1975. The third problem is that there has not been enough focus on mitigation to assist communities and to assist home owners and owners of other structures to bring their structures up to standards which would resist the flood.”