The Lead with Jake Tapper: Rep. Jared Moskowitz, (D-FL), Is Interviewed About Heat In Florida, Farmers Insurance

Interview

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Yes, thanks, Jake. I appreciate you talking about this. Well, first of all, the reason this is so important is because we're getting into a hurricane season and we're talking about the waters being warmer than ever, we're talking about, you know, record temperatures. And so I'm extremely worried about stronger storms, storms happening in areas perhaps that don't have the infrastructure or the ability to respond like some areas, like in Florida that are more used to it. And so, FEMA is going to run out of money, the Disaster Relief Fund is going to run out of money in August.

And so, that will impact our ability to respond, our ability to recover. It'll impact reimbursement to local governments that can't afford it. And that's why I teamed up with them to get ahead of this, to be proactive. We shouldn't have to do a supplemental after the event, we should be doing it before. So look, I've talked to Senator Rubio and Senator Scott, obviously, when I was the director of emergency management, talked to them, you know, about climate change. Obviously we have disagreements on that. And so, what I'm trying to focus on now is I'm trying to focus on ways in which we make sure that cities and counties have the resources to not just respond, life saving measures to respond, but then also recover because obviously, as those resources get held up, we elongate the period for these communities to recover.

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Yes, sometimes, Jake. Obviously, what they'll believe when the cameras are off versus when the cameras are on are sometimes different. What I'm focused on is trying to not argue with them why it's happening, but I am trying to focus on to start working on fixing it. And so, you know, that's the point here, is to solve the problem and to help mitigate the issue.

Everything we do now, every investment we make helps with mitigation. And so, you know, that's what I'm trying to work with them on. And that's what we're doing here with -- we're trying to get the money back in the DRF. The idea that FEMA could run out of money in the middle of hurricane season in the greatest country in the world sounds kind of ridiculous. We should start being proactive and not just reactive.

And we should do that with climate change, Jake. We should be proactive.

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We know we can --

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-- harden structures, we can raise roads, we can build sea walls and we can change our behavior. And so we should be doing all of that all across the board.

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Well, here's a good example, right, so the insurance industry is abandoning Florida. Why is that happening? Because the algorithms are telling them that Florida is not a good investment. My own insurance company dropped me about a year ago and they sent me a letter saying the reason we're not renewing your insurance is because you're prone to hurricanes. And I said to myself, when they insured me, I was prone to hurricanes.

I mean, did they not hear of Hurricanes Wilma and Matthew and Andrew and Michael and all these other hurricanes when they insured me? But look, they've made a decision now that the algorithms, you know, the computers are blinking red and that Florida is not a good investment. I got to be honest, obviously, you know, the folks in Tallahassee in the legislature in the Senate, they passed some bills this year dealing with the lawyers and with legal changes but they did not do anything to really address the rising cost of insurance and housing prices in Florida.

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