Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from Tennessee for his, as usual, thoughtful presentation, even though I disagree with it. His positions are always thoughtful, carefully thought out, and I appreciate his thoughts and efforts.

The need to pass the Menendez-Isakson-Landrieu bill is extremely important. In New York we have seen the follies of the present flood insurance law. We have seen follies in a variety of ways. Most of all, we have seen homeowners charged a fortune which they can't afford. We have seen homeowners told that even if they are not going to be charged, immediately when they sell their home, the rate will go up so high that they can't sell their home, so the value of the home decreases.

We have seen people--victims of Sandy--whose homes were destroyed or badly damaged, rebuild their homes and then be perhaps forced to lose them because of ridiculous flood insurance rates. We have seen the problems with the maps--areas 5 miles from the nearest flood somehow get called a flood zone and they have to pay more insurance.

We have seen FEMA overreaching in terms of drawing maps. In fact, in my State, they used Suffolk County's flood maps and flood levels and just transposed them on Nassau County--a different place with different elevations and different tides, and we had to get that undone. So a moratorium, going back to the drawing board and holding rates in place while that happens, makes eminent sense.

It is true it will cost the government some money. But what is our job here? Is it to let thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands default, lose their homes while we stand here and twiddle our thumbs? I don't think so. I don't think the vast majority of Americans think that. We have to figure out how to deal with flood insurance and the Menendez-Isakson-Landrieu bill does that. But while we are doing it, we have to make sure people don't lose their homes. There are many more storms out there. We know that. We have had a Katrina and a Sandy, creating unprecedented damage. It certainly means that the old flood insurance program probably has to be changed. But to just eliminate it, basically, by not passing this bill or by passing the Toomey amendment which, in effect, would eliminate it, makes no sense and would cause huge damage.

I rise in opposition to the Toomey amendment. If a person believes there should be some level of affordability before we impose rates, then a person can't vote for the Toomey bill. Because the Toomey bill basically has mandatory rate increases before any affordability study is concluded. It repeats the mistake of Biggert-Waters. Biggert-Waters actually called for an affordability study. FEMA didn't complete the affordability study and still had the rates go into effect.

If affordability is one of our hallmarks, and I believe it is, then it certainly makes no sense to do what FEMA has done under Biggert-Waters, which is put rate increases in effect before affordability is studied or do what Toomey does, which actually explicitly says rate increases shall go into effect before the affordability study is completed.

Furthermore, the Toomey amendment, in my judgment, means we may as well have nothing at all; we might as well go back to the old, because it establishes an uncapped annual fee on all 5.6 million NFIP policyholders for an unspecified period of time until the identified costs of this bill are offset.

There is no guarantee that homeowners would be protected from a $30,000 premium, if that is what the actuaries think. Speaking for my State of New York, they say it is people on the water. It is second homes. It is rich people. Not in New York, it is not. We have all seen the pictures of homes damaged in Staten Island, in the Rockaways, Queens, in southern Brooklyn, on the southern shore of Long Island--modest homes, some of them even called bungalows, where people live full-time. In Long Beach, average folks--firefighters, teachers, cops, clerks, secretaries, small business people who struggle--double or triple or quadruple their insurance rates, their flood insurance rates, and they can't get by.

One other point I wish to make. Some of my colleagues said: This doesn't effect me. It is going to because FEMA is remapping across the country. They have done a lot of the remapping in New York. I have talked about how irresponsible what they have done is. Once they come to other Members' States and maps, they will see that the mapping is almost nonsensical, mapping people into flood zones who have never had a flood, charging rates that average folks cannot afford. From what I am told, Pennsylvania is the State with the highest percentage of new mapping activity; 14 percent of all new mapping activity, 1,400 maps. So I think even for my good friend from Pennsylvania--and I know he is a true believer in these things and I don't doubt that and I respect his integrity, but it is sure going to affect the people of Pennsylvania.

Guess which State is second in terms of new maps? New York: 625.

That is why I feel so strongly and have worked so hard with Senators Menendez and Isakson and Landrieu, who have done such a fabulous job on this legislation to get it passed.

So I urge defeat of the Toomey amendment. The Toomey amendment is almost a mirror image of the bill itself, the Biggert-Waters bill, which we are tying to counteract and because FEMA did not implement it correctly.

If the Toomey amendment is defeated, and if our flood insurance bill, which I am a proud cosponsor of, is passed, homeowners will be able to breathe a sigh of real relief while FEMA goes back to the drawing boards and figures out a way to have a flood insurance program that does not bankrupt thousands of middle-class, working-class people.

I yield the floor.

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