Bipartisan Coalition of Senators Defeat Plan to Force Unnecessary Flood Insurance on Homeowners, Businesses

June 29, 2012

Contact: Michael Teague, Pryor, 501-324-6336

Don Canton, Hoeven, 202-224-8469

Nachama Soloveichik, Toomey, 202-224-4254

Christina Mulka, Durbin, 202-228-5643

Sara Lasure, Boozman, 202-224-4843

Chris Gallegos, Cochran, 202-224-5054

Christopher Gaddie, Conrad, 202-224-2043

April Mellody, Casey, 202-224-6324

Brian Weiss, Feinstein, 202-224-3841

Bipartisan Coalition of Senators Defeat Plan to Force Unnecessary Flood Insurance on Homeowners, Businesses

Say Sound Flood Infrastructure Negates Insurance Mandate

WASHINGTON D.C. - A bipartisan coalition of U.S. Senators defeated a proposal to mandate flood insurance for individuals who live behind healthy levees and other flood control structures.

The proposal, originally included in the National Flood Insurance Program reauthorization bill, would require families to purchase flood insurance simply because they live behind a levee, dam or other flood control structure. The senators -- led by Pryor, Hoeven, Toomey and Durbin --argued that homeowners and businesses behind flood control structures already pay local and federal taxes for flood protection through infrastructure. A mandatory one-size-fits-all requirement would ignore these taxpayer investments and compel responsible communities to pay multiple times for flood protection. After a week of fighting against the insurance requirement, the provision was removed from the underlying transportation package.

"In Arkansas and throughout the country, communities have gone to great lengths to build and maintain sound flood control infrastructure. We have some of the best levees in the world that have never once been breached. It simply doesn't make sense to ignore these taxpayer investments, and arbitrarily force these families to fill FEMA's coffers through an unnecessary flood insurance mandate," Pryor said. "I was proud to go to battle for these communities, and I am hopeful we have put this proposal to rest for good."

"In North Dakota, no fewer than 17 communities have invested literally hundreds of millions of dollars to protect themselves and their property with dikes, levees and other flood protection infrastructure," Hoeven said. "We worked very hard in a bipartisan way to amend this bill so that it works well for North Dakota and other states that have already built, or plan to build, extensive flood protection to safeguard their homes and businesses. I appreciate working with Senator Pryor on this amendment, and also want to express my thanks to Senator Toomey for all his good work to secure passage."

"Thanks to the hard work of my colleagues, we were able to successfully remove this unfair, new mandate from the highway bill," Toomey said. "This mandate would have unfairly forced many Americans to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars each year on insurance premiums even though their communities have already invested in sound flood control protection. Removing this double whammy from the highway bill is a huge win for Pennsylvania and the millions of Americans across the country who would have been impacted."

"It is good news that, working together on a bipartisan basis, we were able to defeat this proposal in the Transportation Conference Committee," said Durbin. "I will continue working with this coalition and Congressman Costello in the House of Representatives to do everything I can to protect the investment that Metro East families and businesses have made to strengthen their levees and protect against floods"

"I am pleased that our calls to remove this arbitrary, unfair and overreaching language were heard. The burden this mandate would have placed on Arkansans who live behind sound flood control infrastructure was completely unnecessary given the investments these communities have already made in flood protection. I commend Senator Pryor's hard work to lead the charge against this needless directive and pleased that our objections helped create a sound bill," said Boozman.

"While reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program is important to protect families across Pennsylvania, we should not arbitrarily penalize residents who have made significant investments in levees, dams and other flood control infrastructure," said Casey. "I am grateful that the Senate will be able to extend this program without mandatory insurance purchase requirements."

"It was apparent to me from early on in this process that the Banking Committee's troublesome treatment of levees had to be modified. I am pleased that we've reached an agreement that allows FEMA to continue its ongoing analysis of how risk areas behind levees should be treated under the National Flood Insurance Program. I give Senators Pryor, Johnson and Shelby a great deal of credit for the enthusiasm they showed on both sides of this issue and for ultimately resolving it in a way that will allow long term stability National Flood Insurance Program without placing additional burdens on taxpayers who have invested in flood risk mitigation through levees," said Cochran.

"This is very good news," Conrad said. "Without removing residual risk, we would essentially be penalizing communities that made the responsible decision to invest in flood protection. By striking this provision, we recognize the significant investments some communities have already made to reduce their flood risk and we encourage continued investment in these types of projects."

"I am pleased the residual risk provision was stripped from the flood insurance bill. Dozens of cities and counties throughout California argued vocally against this provision. Their message was clear--it is unfair to penalize homeowners by forcing them to pay for flood insurance after they have already contributed to building safe levees," said Feinstein.

Joining Senators Mark Pryor (D-AR), John Hoeven (R-ND), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) to remove the provision were Senators Mark Begich (D-AK), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Roy Blunt (R-MO), John Boozman (D-AR), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Bob Casey (D-PA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Kent Conrad (D-ND), John Cornyn (R-TX), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Al Franken (D-MN), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), James Inhofe (R-OK), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).