Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I intend to speak for a few moments as in morning business concerning the National Flood Insurance Program, which is set to expire tomorrow night at midnight, July 31, and which certainly this body will not allow to expire. We will undoubtedly reauthorize the program and not leave millions of Americans without flood protection at the height of the Atlantic hurricane season.

The House has sent us legislation that provides for a clean reauthorization, temporary as it may be. It will keep the program going without injecting reforms or changes, and it reassures homeowners and property owners across the country who rely on this program that it will still be there and that they can count on it.

We are not bathing ourselves in glory by doing this. I think we would all acknowledge that passing this reauthorization right before the deadline does not entitle us to pat ourselves on the back. Instead, it should motivate Members to work across the aisle to provide meaningful reforms. I have a suggestion or two for some meaningful reforms when we take this up on a permanent basis.

We may have assured Americans today and tomorrow that when we act on this, they can rely on the National Flood Insurance Program through November, but we need to assure them that they can rely on the program for the next year, for the next 5 years, or for 10 years. That will be a challenge over the next several months.

We need to make this program financially sustainable for the long term, but we also need to assure property owners that they are not going to be hit with a huge insurance bill they can't afford. History does not provide the public with very much encouragement with regard to actually getting some reforms done. We have to keep it going with a patchwork.

Out of the 41 times that the National Flood Insurance Program has been reauthorized over the past 20 years, reforms have been included only 3 times out of 41. That is not a great record. I hope that before the end of this calendar year, we can add a fourth substantive change to make some progress.

One thing I hope we can do is to enact the changes to the COASTAL Act in a bill that I have introduced called the COASTAL Implementation Act. If you recall, after Hurricane Katrina, we saw how discrepancies between wind damage and water damage on the total-loss properties often prevented property owners from being made whole. There was a dispute between the flood insurance folks and the wind insurance folks, and the property owner was caught in the middle.

The COASTAL Act and the followup COASTAL Implementation Act seeks to address these discrepancies with better data collection and more accurate poststorm assessments. More specifically, we want NOAA, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to be able to assess the strength of wind and water at affected sites. With sound data, the property owners can receive fair compensation for their losses--some, perhaps, from the flood insurance coverage, and some from the wind insurance coverage. Reducing cases of ``indeterminate losses'' would ultimately reduce costs to the National Flood Insurance Program and better serve the public.

My other reform proposal also seeks to arm us with better data. I call this legislation the MEMA Act, which stands for Municipality Empowerment Mapping Achievement. Under this act, FEMA would publish the NFIP's rate maps. These maps would cover the entire United States, and they would be created using the latest technology. Information on an area's flood hazard risks should be accessible and comprehensive.

Accurate maps can also help to draw businesses to our smaller communities. Without this information, these businesses might go to a nearby urban area to invest. The playing field should be leveled in this regard. Other ideas, such as competition from the private sector, can help to bring down high flood insurance rates.

What we don't want to do is to drive folks away from coastal areas. Forty percent of our population lives in a coastal county. There are 56 million jobs there, and more than $8 trillion is produced in goods and services, according to NOAA.

Let's also not forget about our rivers and inland waterways. The Mississippi River, for example, accounts for a $400 billion annual economic impact. When communities near a river, lake, or ocean suffer, the effects can ripple across the whole Nation. Try as we might, we can't prevent floods. We can mitigate and try to guard against them and try to strengthen our protection, but we can't eliminate flooding from happening. They are the most frequent natural disaster. We should do what we can to mitigate the damage and costs.

It is also worth reminding my colleagues that the National Flood Insurance Program is a program that serves ordinary people--workers and families who are just trying to make an honest living and who do not want to see everything they have washed away in a flood. These 5 million Americans pay their flood insurance premiums, and they should be able to live without worry that should a disaster strike, they will be left high and dry.

I call on my colleagues in the next day and a half to pass this short-term authorization, and, certainly, we will do that on a bipartisan basis. Then, let's give the Banking Committee and people who are concentrating on this issue some bipartisan support to pass much needed reforms.

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