[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 119 (Monday, July 16, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H6224-H6226]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROMOTING FLOOD RISK MITIGATION ACT
Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R 5846) to require the Comptroller General of the United States
to conduct a study regarding the buyout practices of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, and for other purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 5846
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Promoting Flood Risk
Mitigation Act''.
SEC. 2. GAO STUDY REGARDING BUYOUT PRACTICES.
(a) Definitions.--In this section--
(1) the term ``Administrator'' means the Administrator of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency;
(2) the term ``appropriate committees of Congress'' means--
(A) the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of
the Senate;
(B) the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs of the Senate;
(C) the Committee on Financial Services of the House of
Representatives; and
(D) the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of
the House of Representatives;
(3) the terms ``buyout practice'' and ``buyout program''
mean a practice or program, as applicable, under which the
Administrator provides assistance to State and local
governments so that those entities may acquire flood-damaged
properties committed to open space use in perpetuity in
accordance with section 404(b)(2) of the Robert T. Stafford
Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C.
5170c(b)(2));
(4) the term ``eligible property owner'' means a
policyholder under the National Flood Insurance Program with
a household income that is not more than 120 percent of the
mean household income for the community in which the primary
residence of the policyholder is located;
(5) the term ``National Flood Insurance Program'' means the
program established under the National Flood Insurance Act of
1968 (42 U.S.C. 4001 et seq.);
(6) the term ``repetitive loss structure'' has the meaning
given the term in section 1370(a) of the National Flood
Insurance Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 4121(a)); and
(7) the term ``severe repetitive loss structure'' has the
meaning given the term in section 1366(h) of the National
Flood Insurance Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 4104c(h)).
(b) Study Required.--The Comptroller General of the United
States shall conduct a study to assess--
[[Page H6225]]
(1) the efficacy of buyout practices, as in effect on the
date on which the study is conducted; and
(2) ways to streamline the buyout practices described in
paragraph (1) in order to provide more timely assistance to a
larger number of State and local governments.
(c) Considerations and Analysis.--The study conducted under
subsection (b) shall consider and analyze the following:
(1) To the extent possible, current (as of the date on
which the study is conducted) and future trends with respect
to repetitive loss structures and severe repetitive loss
structures that are insured under the National Flood
Insurance Program, including, with respect to both inland and
coastal areas--
(A) changes in flood risk, flood frequency, and flood
magnitude since the inception of the National Flood Insurance
Program; and
(B) projections for changes in flood risk, flood frequency,
and flood magnitude by 2025, 2050, and 2075.
(2) To the extent possible, buyout practices (as of the
date on which the study is conducted), including--
(A) the availability of funding sources for buyout programs
through various grant programs;
(B) the total number of properties acquired though buyout
programs;
(C) the average length of time for a State or local
government to acquire a flood-damaged property under a buyout
program, with that period beginning on the date on which the
State or local government, as applicable, begins
participating in the buyout program;
(D) an estimate of the number of flood-damaged properties
that could be acquired from willing property owners under
buyout programs with the full cooperation of State and local
governments;
(E) the socioeconomic status of recipients of buyouts under
buyout programs; and
(F) examples of successful buyout programs, including best
practices employed.
(3) Administrative, financial, or temporal constraints that
may impede the timely acquisition of properties under a
buyout program, including--
(A) a lack of communication or cooperation between the
Administrator and the State and local governments that
purchase properties under a buyout program;
(B) pressures to redevelop a property after acquiring a
property through a buyout program; and
(C) a lack of adequate funding.
(4) Potential options, methods, and strategies to address
the constraints identified under paragraph (3), including
evaluating the feasibility of--
(A) a pilot program under which--
(i) an eligible property owner may agree, before a flood
event occurs, to have the primary single-family residence of
the eligible property owner purchased after the residence has
been substantially damaged by a flood;
(ii) the Administrator may provide--
(I) financial assistance to State and local governments
that are willing to participate in the program to purchase
and acquire the properties of owners that have incurred
substantial damage from a flood event; and
(II) a premium credit as an incentive to eligible property
owners to agree to participate in the program;
(iii) properties that are acquired--
(I) shall be maintained as open space in accordance with
section 404(b)(2) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief
and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5170c(b)(2)); and
(II) may be used for non-structural mitigation,
conservation, and recreational purposes; and
(iv) not fewer than 5 and not more than 10 State and local
governments shall participate; and
(B) the role that nonprofit organizations could play in
making buyouts more readily available or more efficient,
similar to the role that those organizations play in the
acquisition of properties for conservation purposes.
(5) The ecological, financial, and flood risk reduction
benefits that buyout practices, as in effect on the date on
which the study is conducted, provide, which shall--
(A) take into account the differences between inland and
coastal areas; and
(B) include--
(i) examples in which ecosystem restoration and other
nature-based approaches have enhanced the reduction of flood
risk; and
(ii) recommendations for best practices.
(6) To the extent possible, an assessment of how the
Administrator may use buyout programs to reduce future flood
disaster recovery costs that are attributable to future
projections of flood risk as a result of sea level rise,
population changes, subsidence, and other factors.
(7) A cost-benefit analysis of mitigation and buy-out
projects and programs, including an assessment of
opportunities and challenges for leveraging different Federal
resources and funding to maximize the value of Federal
investment in disaster mitigation.
(d) Report.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 1 year after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United
States shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress
and the Administrator a report that sets forth the analysis,
conclusions, and recommendations resulting from the study
conducted under subsection (b).
(2) Contents.--The report submitted under paragraph (1)
shall detail the feasibility of the Administrator
establishing, and the processes required for the
Administrator to establish, an alternative buyout program,
such as the pilot program described in subsection (c)(4)(A).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta) and the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
General Leave
Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous materials on H.R. 5846, as amended.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Pennsylvania?
There was no objection.
Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5846, as amended, the Promoting Flood Risk
Mitigation Act, requires the Government Accountability Office to
conduct a study and issue a report to Congress regarding the flood
buyout practices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The removal of homes and buildings that have been repeatedly flooded
to avoid future disaster damages and losses is a critical mitigation
technique.
These mitigation measures not only save lives but also reduce
disaster costs by minimizing the risk of future damage from disasters.
Studies have shown that for every $1 invested in mitigation, there is a
potential savings of $4 to $8, because of damages avoided.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve
the balance of my time.
Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5846, the Promoting Flood Risk
Mitigation Act, as amended.
This bill was brought to us by my colleague from Oregon (Mr.
Blumenauer).
The bill requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct a
study of the efficacy of buyouts of flood-prone property acquired by
the Federal Emergency Management Agency and examine ways to streamline
funding to provide more timely assistance to a larger number of State
and local governments.
One only needs to look at last year's hurricane season to see the
devastating impacts of these intense storms that were caused by climate
change and what they did to our communities. Unfortunately for many
residents, the damage and destruction caused by Hurricanes Harvey,
Irma, and Maria were not occurring for the first time but for a second
or third time. These homes have been flooded and then had to be
repaired with Federal assistance.
In order to stop this endless repairing and rebuilding of homes in
floodplain areas, we must find ways to encourage more homeowners to
agree to having their homes bought out, as well as ways to encourage
State and local governments to purchase more of these properties.
The bill before you requires the GAO to assess the feasibility of a
pilot program that, in exchange for a credit on their flood insurance
premiums, property owners would be able to agree, before a flood
occurs, to have their residence bought out if their residence is later
substantially damaged by flood. The study would also examine the role
that nonprofit organizations could play in making buyouts more readily
available and more efficient.
We must stop the cycle of destroy, rebuild, destroy, rebuild. This
study is a good first step to assess the benefits of buyouts and the
feasibility of potential solutions.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), who is the ranking member of the Committee
on Transportation and Infrastructure, to further discuss this.
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member and the
gentlewoman from Nevada from the committee of jurisdiction on this
issue.
During the markup of the National Flood Insurance Program, a number
of us suggested that perhaps there is a way to help this bankrupt
program save substantial funds. Right now, the program is $20 billion
in debt, and we have a temporary extension from the March omnibus that
expires in July.
The issue is that 2 percent of the properties in America have
accounted for 24 percent of the spending by the National Flood
Insurance Program. More than 30,000 of them have flooded five times
each and been rebuilt by the
[[Page H6226]]
bankrupt Federal Flood Insurance Program. Some have flooded more than
30 times.
This is insanity, that we would keep rebuilding in these flood-prone
areas, rebuilding, rebuilding, rebuilding, and piling up debt and
raising the insurance premiums for everybody else on the program who
presents way less risk.
So we decided that a way to go would be to provide a significant
incentive to these people, and the incentive would be that they would
have an agreed-upon contract with FEMA to purchase their property at
preflood market value, and they would also get a discount on their
Federal flood insurance. So they get the discount on the insurance and
have entered into an agreement to sell the property to FEMA at the full
market price. FEMA would remove the structures, and it would be turned
into open space that would continue to flood repeatedly, but we
wouldn't have to pay anything to rebuild it.
We proposed that. The House Republicans said, oh, they thought it
would be too expensive. We don't know if it would be too expensive. It
is 2 percent and 24 percent of the costs. I don't think it is going to
be more expensive. I think it is going to save a heck of a lot of
money.
So this bill would have the GAO, the Government Accountability
Office, study this proposal and set up a pilot program to see if,
indeed, it would facilitate cost savings and avoid the repeated
rebuilding of flood-prone structures and have willing takers on the
other side.
The other real incentive is that, if someone has finally tired of it
the fifth time their house was flooded and they want out, that process
now takes 2 to 5 years and involves a whole lot of negotiations over
value, preflood value, and all that sort of thing. Here you get an
agreed-upon preflood value; you get a discount on your flood insurance;
and you just walk away. FEMA will take care of the rest, the removal of
the rubble and turning that into open space.
So I think this would be one thing we need to do to help the Federal
Flood Insurance Program, which is critical. Thirty-four thousand people
in my State have it. I have had Federal insurance; I don't have it
anymore. But this is a critical program for many, many people who are
only very, very occasionally going to be flooded, but they can't get a
mortgage unless they have flood insurance.
Mr. Speaker, I recommend this bill strongly to my colleagues.
Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
South Carolina (Mr. Sanford).
Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his work on this
bill. I thank the gentlewoman from Nevada for her work on this bill. It
is a bipartisan bill because it makes commonsense. So whether it is
DeFazio or Blumenauer or Duffy--go down the list of different people
who have worked on it--they have worked on something that makes eminent
commonsense, and I want to thank them for their efforts.
The saying is: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
But the corollary to that is: If it is broken, fix it.
What we have just heard are any number of different conversations
about the degree to which the buyout program is not just a little bit
broken but a whole lot broken.
First off, just at an individual level, it captures people in a
hamster wheel that they can never get out of. If you look at the
average buyout time, it is about 5 years. In that 5-year time period,
people are stuck there waiting and waiting and waiting as their house,
in many cases, refloods.
I have been to Shadowmoss in the West Ashley section of Charleston. I
remember going in there after a flood. Those people who had a second
story had carried stuff up to the second story. Those who didn't were
just dealing with the flooding as it occurred on the first floor. But
they had been repeatedly flooded.
So at an individual level, this makes sense for the remedy that it
offers an individual, so they are not stuck in a house that is
repeatedly flooding, as they are trapped in dealing with that.
It makes sense based on what Mother Nature is telling us.
My colleague from Nevada mentioned this notion of climate change. I
don't know exactly what is going on, but I know that in Charleston,
South Carolina, if you compare the 1950s with the present day, there is
10 times more flooding in what they call king tides, and it has become
regular. Something is going on out there that says this buyout program
needs to be adjusted, and it needs to be adjusted now.
The final point I would make is that this makes, as has been
registered thus far, a whole lot of sense for the taxpayer, because if
you look at the numbers, again, 30,000 homes in America have been
flooded five or more times with substantial consequence to the
taxpayer. We are talking about $5.5 billion being spent by the taxpayer
in rebuilding and repairing. Destroy and repair is the term my
colleague from Nevada used. The destroy-and-repair, destroy-and-repair
cycle is destructive for the taxpayer.
It is for that reason that everybody from the State floodplain
managers to the National Association of Realtors to the Nature
Conservancy has supported this measure. I cannot endorse it enough, and
I thank the gentleman for his work on it.
Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I, once again, urge passage of this
legislation and all the bills that we have brought before you today
from this subcommittee.
I want to thank our chairman, Mr. Barletta, for working with us
across the aisle on these bipartisan bills.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
{time} 1800
Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on
H.R. 5846, as amended, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta) that the House suspend the
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 5846, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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