OPINION: Here’s what gridlock looks like

July 22--I can understand, given the issues at stake, why Congress has dragged its feet on reforming the nation's flood insurance program.

What I can't understand, however, is why it would imperil the program in the middle of hurricane season.

Unless Congress acts, the program -- the sole source of flood insurance for about 5 million Americans -- will expire July 31. In case you haven't checked the calendar lately, that's just over a week away. And hurricane season is approaching its historic peak in August and September.

This is a big deal locally. As of May 31, the National Flood Insurance Program covered nearly 29,000 homes in Terrebonne and Lafourche with a combined value of just over $7 billion.

Louisiana lawmakers, to their credit, understand the gravity of this issue and have proposed roughly half a dozen measures that would extend the program three to six months while Congress continues to work out its differences over long-term reforms. You can read about their latest efforts on today's front page.

Based on its past actions, I'd say the odds are high that Congress will pass an extension before the deadline.

Lawmakers passed short-term extensions 17 times between 2008 and 2012, according to an April report by the Congressional Research Service. They allowed it to lapse four times: March 1-2, 2010; March 29 to April 15, 2010; June 1 to July 2, 2010; and October 1-5, 2011.

Based on that record, Congress let the insurance program lapse roughly one of every four times it faced such a decision.

Here's what will happen if Congress lets the program lapse again:

* The program will stop issuing policies until Congress extends or renews it. This is a problem for a lot of people. For instance, the law requires banks to ensure that home and business owners buy flood insurance before approving a mortgage. If you're getting ready to close on a house, and the insurance program lapses, expect a delay. "During the lapse in June 2010, estimates suggest that over 1,400 home sale closings were cancelled or delayed each day, representing over 40,000 sales per month," the Congressional Research Service's report says. "These figures applied to residential properties, but commercial properties were also affected."

* If your policy expires while the program is in limbo, you will go without flood insurance until Congress acts. And you could end up losing your cheaper, grandfathered rate and instead pay the higher costs new policyholders do.

* The program will continue paying claims to policyholders whose homes were damaged by flooding. But there's a catch. The agency's ability to borrow money from the U.S. Treasury will be reduced from $30.4 billion to $1 billion. Since the program is already an estimated $25 billion in debt, that could delay insurance claims for a lot of flood victims.

Will it happen? Probably not, but maybe so. The last lapse occurred for two days in January, after Congress delayed on passing an extension, and again for a few hours Feb. 9 when the federal government shut down briefly during a budget debate. No time is a good time, but at least it wasn't during hurricane season.

Lawmakers who really cared about their constituents' well-being would be unwilling to put them at risk this way over and over. If the politicians in Washington can't agree on what long-term flood-insurance reform ought to look like, the least they can do is extend the program long enough to get the job done without the disruption and worry they're inflicting with these short-term extensions and lapses.

-- Executive Editor Keith Magill can be reached at 857-2201 or keith.magill@houmatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter @CourierEditor.

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