Rep. Duffy’s NFIP Reform Bill Passes House With Bipartisan Support

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 -- Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., issued the following news release:

Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI), Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing & Insurance, today lauded the 21st Century Flood Reform Act (HR 2875), which reauthorizes and reforms the National Flood Insurance Program. The bill passed the House in a bipartisan fashion, 237-189.

Congressman Duffy made the following remarks on the House floor in support of the NFIP reform package:

Duffy:

"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank Chairman Hensarling for all his good and relentless hard work on this bill. I appreciate his tenacity. I want to thank Mr. Blumenauer for the comments he just made. Now the two of us have not worked together on a lot of issues but this is one we saw eye-to-eye. And through flood, I think we've seen a lot of common ground and built a friendship together, I actually promised I'd wear a bike today and I haven't kept my promise, I'll wear it later today, Mr. Blumenauer.

"But I want to talk about the debate we've had here today. This has been an effort on bipartisanship. On the Republican side I've worked with Graves and Scalise and Zeldin and King and LoBiondo and MacArthur, trying to bring in their concerns in this legislation. On the Democrat side, I worked with Mr. Scott. I've worked with Ms. Maloney, Ms. Velazquez- all concerned about the northeast and the Sandy reforms that were necessary to learn the lessons. We've included those reforms in this bill.

"I sat down countless hours with the ranking member, she shared her phone number with me. She left me at the dance though because before this thing was done she walked away. We tried to get a bipartisan bill. We worked on this thing together. So to say something other than that is not fair, it's not right. We have tried you might not like the end product but we have gone a great distance to get a bill that everybody can agree on. And I think we're going to get that today. I want to talk about a few things.

"We're $25 billion in debt; a deficit of $1.5 billion a year. This program is not sustainable. We have people who are building homes in harm's way. They get flooded multiple times. The chairman and I saw a homeowner that was flooded three times in 10 years. One homeowner let his house burn because he left his house to get his kids who were swept away in flood waters, and we rebuild those homes in the same location and risk the lives of firefighters and first responders to go save them.

"This policy is unacceptable and it's not compassionate. I hear my friends say, 'you're going to hurt homeowners, the rates are going to skyrocket.' What? On average, for a year, the price of flood insurance, on average, will go up twenty dollars- less than two dollars a month- and they're screaming bloody murder about that?

"And what do they get for it? I got a list of 30 things of great reform we get in this bill to help homeowners. Yes, highly subsidized properties in the prefirm space are going to pay a little more, a little higher escalator. But we spend one billion dollars on mitigation, helping people flood-proof their homes, helping people get bought out of their home and get to higher ground so they don't have to live in a home that continually is flooded. I don't know if you have lived in a flood home but it ain't fun. It's horrible. A billion dollars for that program.

"We help communities with their mapping. We give them options to map, and we give them an appeals process in their mapping. Great reform! We set up a private market. Now, you don't have to take the private market, but you have an option to get a private plan that might have a better rate than the government offers you. You have a choice. A choice. God forbid a choice. That gives you a better price. And by the way, when we get the private market in, we offload our risk to the private sector. So when a disaster hits Texas or Florida, it's not just the taxpayers that bear all the burden. We have private companies in play. That's a great thing. This is a good bill. This is a bipartisan bill. Let's stand together and reform a program to help the homeowner and our national debt. I yield back."

Click here to watch his remarks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFCFGLzFGqQ).

Background:

The 21st Century Flood Reform Act will:

* Provide affordable NFIP coverage for current policyholder.

* Expedite the implementation of policyholder monthly installment payment of premiums.

* Establish a flood damage savings account for individual policyholders to facilitate either the reduction or elimination of NFIP premiums.

* Improve safety by modernizing FEMA's approach to designating and addressing multiple-loss properties.

* Include the Ross-Castor Flood Insurance Market Parity and Modernization Act (H.R. 1422) to provide greater private market access, competition and consumer choice.

* Allow localities, who elect to use their own resources, to develop their own map alternatives to NFIP flood maps using better and cost-effective technology at an accelerated pace, subject to FEMA standards and approval.

* Require consideration of unique characteristics of coastal and local inland properties that are oftentimes over-charged.

* Require, for the first time, FEMA to conduct an annual independent actuarial study of the NFIP fund to determine whether the government program is collecting revenue sufficient to cover its long-term expected losses.

* Require the Administrator to use risk transfer tools, such as reinsurance or catastrophe bonds, to reduce direct taxpayer exposure to insurance losses.

* Formalize an appeals process that was established for consumers when they dispute their claims.

* Improve disclosure requirements for standard flood insurance policies.

To learn more about the 21st Century Flood Reform Act, click here (https://financialservices.house.gov/components/redirect/r.aspx?ID=478159-71707051).

This document was posted showing the date: Nov. 14, 2017.