[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6880-6881]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            FLOOD INSURANCE

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, I also want to say to the 
Senator from California and the Senator from Louisiana, job well done. 
The WRDA bill is a very good bill, and it will help both the port of 
New York City--one of the great ports of the world--as well as our 
Great Lakes ports, which are having their own troubles in terms of 
dredging.
  But there was an extreme disappointment in the bill--no fault of my 
colleague from California. I am extremely disappointed at the objection 
some of my colleagues raised to even allowing a vote on the Landrieu 
amendment to the WRDA bill, and I, along with Senator Landrieu and 
others, will keep fighting until this commonsense amendment passes. I 
am speaking of amendment No. 888. I was proud to cosponsor it. Very 
simply, it would delay for 5 years any premium increases resulting from 
revised flood maps. The purpose of the amendment was to provide FEMA 
enough time to complete the study it was required to complete over a 
month ago on the affordability of increased premiums.
  Senator Toomey is right that we passed a flood insurance 
reauthorization bill just 10 months ago, but it was always the intent--
and many of us worked hard on that--under Biggert-Waters that FEMA 
would conduct an affordability study before higher premiums would go 
into effect. That way Congress could review the findings and 
recommendations and address important issues relating to affordability 
and neighborhood sustainability.
  Senator Landrieu's amendment was carefully crafted to give FEMA time 
to complete its study, then allow Congress 6 months to respond. For 
technical reasons, she amended it to a straight 5-year delay--I thought 
that was better--but the purpose was the same. The logic is 
irrefutable: Why bother to do the study at all if we are going to allow 
FEMA to charge ahead and start raising premiums all over the country?
  I say this to my colleagues--the Senator from Louisiana knows it 
well, and we know it well in New York--you are going to be finding out 
across the country that flood insurance premiums are going to rise so 
high that they will be unaffordable to average middle-class people.
  What do you say to the homeowner who is forced into the choice of 
either paying crushing flood premiums or leaving their home and their 
neighborhood? Do we say to them: Sorry, we just couldn't get around to 
thinking about difficult cases like yours just yet.
  That is not going to stand. That is not fair. It is not acceptable.
  I note for my colleagues who might think this is just a Hurricane 
Sandy-related issue, it is not. New Yorkers are facing this situation 
because our flood maps are being revised--a process that was well 
underway before Sandy. So the increased premiums many New Yorkers could 
well face will face all of your constituents. As FEMA starts revising 
flood maps--and they are increasing the number of homes included and 
increasing the level at which homeowners have to pay--every one of you 
is going to be facing the same problem we are facing in New York.
  Madam President, $9,500 for flood insurance for someone who makes 
$40,000 or $50,000 and lives in a modest home? Forget it. We cannot 
have that, and I will tell FEMA right now that will not stand. 
Something will give because the situation is untenable.
  The original bill provided for a study, and then Congress could act 
on that study and modify the bill. But now we are moving forward 
without even the study being done. In fact, people in some States are 
already seeing their premiums rise up to 25 percent a year, and many 
more States will be covered over the next 2 years.
  If you think it is just coastal States, such as my State of New York 
and the State of Louisiana, it is not. In fact, according to FEMA, my 
friend Senator Toomey's home State is one of the States that rely most 
heavily on flood insurance. Pennsylvania ranks seventh in the total 
amount of NFIP payouts, seventh in the number of claims filed since the 
program began.
  So we all have an interest to get this right, that we proceed with 
eyes wide open in attempts to bring the Flood Insurance Program onto 
sounder financial footing; that we have the benefit of all the data and 
analysis we need. My prediction: If we do not change this, there will 
be no flood insurance or at the very minimum we will let it be optional 
for everybody and let people decide because to force people between 
paying an amount they cannot afford and forcing people to leave their 
homes is a choice this Congress will ultimately not abide for.
  It is important to remember that if people cannot afford flood 
insurance, they are going to drop out of the program. Their communities 
might not adopt new flood maps when proposed because they know the cost 
is prohibitive. When future disasters hit, these families and 
communities will be entirely dependent on Federal aid to help them 
rebuild, and that will cost the taxpayers even more.
  So it is important that we ensure the program is both financially 
sound and accessible to ordinary middle-class families. Something is 
very wrong with a program that requires middle-class families to pay 
over $10,000 a year for a policy with coverage that is capped at 
$250,000.
  You may ask why I am so passionate about this issue. Because I have 
visited too many families, too many communities in New York City and in 
upstate New York where the prospect of higher premiums is causing 
residents to

[[Page 6881]]

rethink whether they can even afford to remain in the homes in which 
they have lived, many of them, for their whole lives, whether they can 
afford to live in the neighborhoods in which they grew up, where their 
families and friends live, where their children go to school. Families 
are being forced to make this choice in neighborhoods from Staten 
Island to the Rockaways to Massapequa and east and upstate in places 
such as Schoharie County and in the southern tier counties such as 
Broome and Tioga and in north country counties such as Essex. It would 
be a shame if we allowed this to happen--all because FEMA did not get 
around to studying the impact of higher flood rates and Congress did 
not have a chance to respond.
  So I hope that by the time New York's maps are completed and New 
Yorkers have completed the process of rebuilding in the wake of Sandy, 
fears of $10,000 flood insurance premiums for middle-class homes will 
prove to have been incorrect. But right now those fears are very real, 
and they are putting the future of some of New York's most tightly knit 
middle-class neighborhoods at risk.
  As I noted previously, New York's flood maps were in the process of 
being revised before Sandy hit. But in the wake of Sandy, it adds 
insult to injury when families who are spending their entire savings to 
repair their homes are told that in a year or two they may not be able 
to afford to live there.
  In conclusion, I am disappointed that we did not get a vote on this 
issue, but I will keep pushing and pushing until this awful situation 
is rectified. I know Senator Landrieu will. I know Senator Vitter will. 
The issue is too important to too many New Yorkers and too many 
Americans, and I will not stop until we get a vote and until we 
ultimately succeed.
  I am confident many more of my colleagues will begin to hear from 
their constituents about the challenges they are facing as flood 
premiums are increased, and they will see the wisdom of Senator 
Landrieu's amendment and Congress will ultimately act to fix this 
problem once and for all.
  With that, I appreciate my colleagues giving me time, and I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.

                          ____________________