Providing for Consideration of H.R. 5114, Flood Insurance Reform Priorities Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Ms. PINGREE of Maine. I thank my colleague for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, today the House will consider H.R. 5114, the Flood Insurance Reform Priorities Act.

In Maine, FEMA is remapping York and Cumberland counties. The new maps will help homeowners and businesses assess the flood risk they face.

In Portland, the initial models FEMA used showed much of the city's waterfront would be damaged by waves during a bad storm. FEMA's models turned out to be more appropriate for exposed or standing shorelines. Portland Harbor is not a barrier island nor is it a community built on shifting sand or even walled off from the sea by levees. Rather, Portland Harbor is a working, thriving waterfront that has endured for hundreds of years.

After working with the city, FEMA recently improved the accuracy of their model, taking into account the impact of the city's working waterfront on the wave action as well as new data provided by the city. In the next few weeks, FEMA will issue preliminary maps that are a result of hard work by the city and the Maine congressional delegation.

Together, we were able to save Portland's working waterfront, but other communities in York and Cumberland counties in my State face similar issues and do not have the resources to hire engineers and collect new data. Our working waterfronts are the economic and cultural hearts of our coastal communities. We need to make sure they are treated fairly in assessing the risks they face.

In Harpswell, one boatyard just spent thousands of dollars to show FEMA they were not in a flood zone and that the maps were wrong. In Rockland, many of the buildings on the working waterfront probably can not be rebuilt if they burn down, and a new herring processing facility had to be built so far away from the water that they put the herring on a truck and drive it across the parking lot to be processed.

You know, FEMA may be correct in their models--that these piers and buildings are in a flood zone and at risk for being damaged or destroyed in a once-in-a-lifetime storm. Frequently, though, sheltered harbors like Portland are relatively protected, and even during a bad hurricane or nor'easter, they may flood and do not get battered by heavy waves.

Our Nation's working waterfronts, like all of our communities, deserve to be mapped using the best science FEMA has available. That's why I worked with the City of Portland to craft language that was included in the manager's amendment to show how these models are applied to working waterfronts and to study how it is done.

We owe it to the American people to make sure that all of our communities receive accurate information about flood risks they face, and all of our communities deserve to work with FEMA in a true partnership.

I urge my colleagues to support the rule, the manager's amendment, and the underlying bill.

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