this weekend, a local newspaper in Mississippi ran a lead editorial that wondered aloud whether the cancellation of the Senate's Independence Day recess signaled a ``serious effort on the part of Senate leaders'' and the White House to…

I wonder if my colleague from Mississippi will yield at this time.

I'm going to yield my time.

Somebody must be doing something right in the fact that we've not had these incidents I mentioned as in the other four locations.

It seems that the rulemaking should be different than the rulemaking with regard to the construction of toys or a new way of looking at labor laws.

I'm glad to be joining you in that position on the Subcommittee.

I think you would concede that the current program does not work when it comes to the wind versus water claims in a slab situation.

My proposal, which we are calling the COASTAL Act, would not add wind to the Flood Control Program.

Another program lapse is entirely avoidable, and we should not allow that to happen.

It may very well be that the Flood Insurance Program and the taxpayers have paid more than their fair share.

That is not the way the Flood Insurance Program works, and I am mystified as to why banks and NFIP do not work together to enforce this requirement as aggressively as banks enforce the other types of insurance.

The COASTAL Act is by no means a silver bullet for all the problems associated with flood insurance and NFIP.

We share Senator Wicker's goal of ensuring timely and fair claims payments to victims of natural disasters.

I would also notice that the States of Montana and South Dakota have sent a great deal of water down our way this year, which we are experiencing right now.

We are not asking the Federal Government to come up with a new regime of data collection, are we, in your proposal?

This does not make FEMA do it. It gives FEMA the ability to engage whomever they choose to do it.

Well, NOAA and a lot of the things that are out there, this information is available.

A long-term reauthorization with targeted reforms is necessary for coastal communities to prosper.

The COASTAL Act is a commonsense approach to addressing these problems.

If there is a levee, surely the property owner should get some reduced premium because that levee is there.

I have recently introduced the Consumer Option for an Alternative System to Allocate Losses Act, the COASTAL Act.

This is the approach that Senator Wicker's bill takes and it is one I believe that the Committee should take care to continue and to clarify in the bill's legislation language.

Hurricane Katrina clearly demonstrated both the devastating power of hurricanes as well as the havoc they can wreak on homeowners.

It needs to be addressed in any reauthorization.

We should transfer risk from the Program to the private sector to the maximum extent possible.