Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate my good friend from Pennsylvania for hosting this Special Order on a very serious issue. Biggert-Waters, I think, was a piece of legislation that we all had great hopes for in terms of the National Flood Insurance Program. As the commercial insurance industry really exited the insuring of flood risk, it was left to the Federal Government; and with the recent flooding, obviously, over the past number of years, that fund has been decimated. Last year, on a bipartisan basis, Congress passed the Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. The measure included some long overdue reforms that strengthened the financial solvency and administrative efficiency of the National Flood Insurance Program. The rationale for the 2012 law was the need for the National Flood Insurance Program to more accurately reflect flood risk. Historically, most low-risk States have subsidized higher risk States, mostly coastal. Similarly, low-risk areas within the States have tended to subsidize those areas with a higher risk, more prone to flooding. The linchpin of the 2012 law, however, was to use true actuarial rates in order to prevent very low-risk areas from subsidizing moderate to high- risk areas. The unintended consequences have been drastic premium increases for those plans that were traditionally subsidized by the National Flood Insurance Program.…”