Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3307, the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act.

Today, I am pleased to lead the Democratic Party in delivering this message to the thousands of Americans who are facing unaffordable flood insurance premiums: relief is on the way.

As we committed to many months ago, Democrats have worked to fix this problem from the moment we heard about the unintended consequences of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act.

Mr. Speaker, because I am the Waters of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act, I felt a responsibility to make sure that we deal with the concerns that were coming to us from our constituents all over this country. The rate increases were unimaginable. So Democratic lawmakers in the House and the Senate took action, spearheading bipartisan legislation that passed the Senate and garnered the support of a majority of the House of Representatives.

Today, we have worked in good faith with Republican leadership to achieve a measure that isn't perfect but that will provide real relief to the thousands of families currently facing unaffordable premiums.

I believe this House measure strikes an important balance, addressing affordability concerns, bringing accountability to FEMA, and protecting the stability of the National Flood Insurance Program. The legislation ends dramatic increases caused by events such as property sales and restores grandfathered rates for those who played by the rules and built their properties according to code.

For families hit by unaffordable premium increases, this bill provides important relief in the form of a refund.

I am proud of the dramatic improvements to this bill that were made by the Democratic Caucus. These include reasonable limitations on rate increases that one property can experience, including those newly mapped into flood zones. We have ensured that when FEMA engages in the process of remapping, it actually works with communities to make sure it is being done accurately. We have made FEMA more accountable by requiring it provide clear and accurate information to anyone who may be affected by a change in policy.

Mr. Speaker, this bill would not have come together without strong support and participation from the Democratic Party. I would like to thank Leader Pelosi and Whip Hoyer, as well as Senator Mary Landrieu and Representative Cedric Richmond for their leadership, and the leadership of so many Democratic Members across the country, which was critical to taking this bill over the finish line. I applaud them. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Let me just say a word of thanks to someone very special on this, Mr. Eric Cantor, who weighed in and did everything possible to work this out in a way that we could all be comfortable with. I am pleased for the opportunity I have had to work with him. I also thank Mr. Grimm. We started this out when others believed that we could not do anything about it. Having said all of that, we have come together to do something good for the people of this country.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. WATERS. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker and Members, I am very proud and very pleased about this bipartisan effort to fix a serious problem in this country. As a matter of fact, we should all be pleased because it is said by the media and others that we cannot work together. This is a time when we can demonstrate that we really do care about the citizens of this country and we recognize the problems that were created by the Biggert-Waters bill.

I said earlier that my name was on that Biggert-Waters legislation, and I certainly worked in a bipartisan effort to try and do the right thing, and, of course, some day we would like to move all of these subsidies to actuarial rates.

We have unintended consequences in Biggert-Waters, and we have set out to fix them. So I want you to know that Mr. Grimm, Mr. Richmond, Mr. Cassidy, and Mrs. Capito all have worked very hard to make sure that we addressed the concerns of our constituencies.

Let me tell you, with this bill we are removing certain rate increase triggers, the reinstating of grandfathering, lower rate increases, refund of excess premium charges to homeowners, affordability study and framework; added to that, working with the bill that the Republicans brought to the floor and Democrats added to it, individual property rate increase caps, affordability goal, rate increase protection for newly mapped properties, mapping protections, consumer protections, protections of small businesses, nonprofits, houses of worship, and residences.

Mr. Speaker and Members, again, this is a bill that will address the concerns and the outcry of our constituents, some of whom were experiencing 500 and 600 percent rate increases. I tried to work with the chairman, and I was disappointed that Mr. Hensarling saw differently. He does not support this bill, and he said so. Mr. Neugebauer and Mr. Hensarling said they had come up with other ways to deal with it. I never saw any of that. Nobody ever tried to relate to the fact that I was outreaching to try and get Mr. Hensarling, Mr. Neugebauer, and others who had a different opinion to come and work this out and do what we could for our constituents.

So, I am very pleased that we had Members on the opposite side of the aisle who insisted that their constituents deserved protection and that they deserved support. Working with their leadership and Mr. Cantor working with our leadership, with the Democrats on this side of the aisle, we have come up with something that is extremely important and effective.

Now, I must say to both sides of the aisle, we have continuing work to do. This is not a permanent fix on this. What I discovered was none of us knew enough about FEMA. We have been crying for years about remapping. We don't really know how it works. We don't know the discretion that they have in making some of these decisions. We have got to spend the next few years really learning FEMA, how it works and how it makes decisions. We should never get into this kind of a situation again because we simply have allowed them to do what they do without us being involved. They don't report to us on a yearly basis, as I would like to have them do.

So this is an opportunity for us not only to fix this problem at this time but to focus on the fact that we have got oversight responsibility that we have got to carry out to make sure that we are dealing with these issues in a way that makes good sense.

So, again, I am very proud, and I am very pleased with this bipartisan effort. I welcome the opportunity to have been able to work with some Members from the opposite side of the aisle that I had not worked with before. I think I learned a lot about them, and they learned a lot about me. I am so thankful that our leadership gave me the latitude to say go and do everything possible working with the opposite side of the aisle to get this problem fixed. So they have not only supported me, but they have supported all of the Members on our side of the aisle who have said to them that this may be one of the most important fixes that we will do this year.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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