Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, last week, the House voted overwhelmingly, by a vote of 366 to 52, to extend the National Flood Insurance Program for 4 months, until November 30, 2018. The purpose is to allow for the continued reform efforts of this program so as to make it more accountable, more affordable, and more sustainable. Two weeks ago, the Senate demonstrated almost unanimous support for a 6-month extension of the National Flood Insurance Program, by a vote of 94 to 5.

The NFIP, as the Flood Insurance Program is called, insures properties in every State--approximately 6 million homes and businesses and over $1.2 trillion in assets. The current law has it set to expire at 11:59 p.m. tomorrow, on July 31. If the NFIP is not extended, people will not be able to renew their flood insurance policies or purchase new ones. That means more will be uninsured during the peak of hurricane season. That is not acceptable. According to the National Association of Realtors, letting the NFIP expire would cost up to 40,000 property sales per month, or about 1,330 home sales per day.

Last week, the Senate tried to pass the short-term extension that the House had passed by unanimous consent, but we were unable to. So, on Friday, cloture was filed in the Senate on the 4-month extension that the House passed. The problem is that the cloture vote will not occur until Wednesday, setting up the final passage of the extension on Thursday. That means that the NFIP would lapse for 2 days.

This is totally avoidable. Its delay does nothing to advance reforms within the NFIP, many of which I proposed a year ago in a long-term reauthorization bill that I had introduced with colleagues from New York and West Virginia. A lapse does disrupt real estate transactions for the 2,600 Americans who are trying to close on their homes--perhaps on their first homes--over the next couple of days. By the way, these are not million-dollar properties, for 98.5 percent of NFIP properties are in parishes or counties with median household incomes of below $100,000, and 62 percent are in parishes or counties with median household incomes below the national average of $54,000.

Congress has always honored the flood insurance policies that NFIP policyholders have had. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to expedite the consideration of the National Flood Insurance Program's 4-month extension and pass it by unanimous consent.

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