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Floor Speech
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Mr. CASSIDY. Madam President, I happen to know you are from Mississippi, and so as I speak about flood insurance, I suspect there are people in Mississippi whom you know or, perhaps, are related to who can relate to that which I describe.
I am speaking specifically about the uncertainty felt by those who rely upon flood insurance as we enter hurricane season. Unfortunately and tragically, we actually have a real, live example of this as Hurricane Beryl has hit an area that was devastated by Harvey just a few years ago. And anyone along that gulf coast who is dependent upon flood insurance to rebuild--and their premiums just rose--have now been hit by Beryl, and they can anticipate their premiums rising once more.
A program that is supposed to give security, instead, is creating anxiety. It isn't just the people who flood because some people who don't flood and who have never flooded will see their premiums rise as well. Why? It is because of the way that this program is being implemented.
Let me say that Louisiana stands with Mississippi; Louisiana stands with Texas; and we stand with all parts of the Nation that will suffer under the way that this program is being implemented.
So let me put up my first floor chart. We have the National Flood Insurance Program--or NFIP, as we call it--as a safety net for homeowners after a storm. It protects them from being financially wiped out by a hurricane or any other act of flooding. But this year is different from past years for two reasons. First, the National Weather Service predicts that 2024 will see above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Second, there is much more uncertainty about--and this is the key thing--whether NFIP will remain affordable due to FEMA's new risk assessment system called Risk Rating 2.0. For most people, the short answer is no--no that it will remain affordable.
But this is not the issue just for Louisiana. It affects Mississippi. It affects Texas. It affects all coasts and anyplace where there is a river or a stream. Anyplace there is water, there is a risk of flooding.
The National Flood Insurance Program covers 4.7 million policies across the country. And so those 4.7 million Americans rely upon NFIP to insure their homes and businesses, to keep their family safe. And we have seen flooding in States that you typically don't think of when you say ``flooding.'' Virginia, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, Mississippi, and Alabama are all States that have had more than $1 billion in NFIP claims since 1978. Again, these States, over $1 billion in claims since 1978.
And those are just the States hardest hit, those in the dark. These lighter colored States have all been affected as well. Now, maybe not a billion, but if you are the family whose home has been washed away, it has affected you in one of the most profound ways.
I will also point out that this is not a rich man's program. If you look in these communities, like in Pennsylvania, oftentimes that is called riverine flooding. And folks who are less well-off tend to have the older homes in the bottom of the valley. When the flooding goes through and rips up their home, they have fewer financial resources by which to rebuild. So the kind of charge that this only protects luxury homes on a beach--totally false. This is for middle-income families, working families, and poor families, allowing them to have the security that they can rebuild after a tragic event.
In the past 3 years, we have seen seven major flooding events across the country, each costing more than $1 billion. In 2021, Louisiana saw flash flooding affecting thousands of homes. California, the State the Presiding Officer now represents, has had two major floods--in January 2021 and the winter of 2023. Kentucky and Missouri both saw major flooding in July 2022 and Florida, in April 2023. Vermont, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois were each hit in July 2023. In December 2023, we saw flooding along the east coast States from Florida to Maine. Remember, these are just the floods that caused over $1 billion in damage.
When we consider, once again, who lives in these areas most affected, we see why we need to keep the NFIP affordable for working families. Sixty-two percent of all NFIP policies are in parishes and counties where the median household income is below the national average of about $54,000 a year. Once more, these are not billionaires' beach homes.
Hard-working people are uncertain whether they will be able to stay in their homes because of a decision made by a bureaucracy with zero input from Congress. Now we are seeing the consequences of that decision, with an estimated 900,000 people--one-fifth of all policies-- dropping coverage because it is unaffordable. When that happens, the pool of policyholders shrinks, and the program enters what is called an actuarial death spiral. That is where the risk is put on fewer people, which raises the premiums even more, which make those who are, relatively speaking, least at risk drop their policies, which concentrates it more--once more, a death spiral, setting up the program for collapse.
Congress needs to do something before it is too late. First, we need to step back and ask how we got into this situation. Why did FEMA implement Risk Rating 2.0? Why inject this much uncertainty into the system? Congress never passed a bill requiring that FEMA implement this.
President Biden could have stopped it with the stroke of a pen. We have done it in the past. In 2019, my office worked with the Trump administration to successfully delay implementation because of concerns over the methodology of how FEMA was calculating rates. This time, even though the concerns remain, the Biden administration would not work with us.
Since the Biden administration is allowing this to happen, Congress must step in. My team has worked on a bipartisan solution that will roll back Risk Rating 2.0 and make flood insurance affordable and accountable again.
Let me say to my colleagues: Let's talk about it. Let's have a conversation. Every single Member of this body has constituents who rely on the National Flood Insurance Program. We owe it to them to find a solution to a system that isn't working for Americans who were promised a safety net in case of a flood. Let's get to work.
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