Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, this particular bill has not been examined in committee--not in the Senate, not even in the House. It was rushed to the floor of the House without amendment, and it is rushed to the floor here without amendment. This is not how the legislative process is supposed to work--especially not here in the Senate.

My opponents may say we already had our chance to impact this policy, but what we have before us now is a different bill--a bill which we have never seen before. This bill is not a conference report. It takes zero cues from the Senate bill. Not a single representative of the American people has been given the opportunity to offer even a single amendment to this legislation.

All I have been asking for is a vote on an amendment which eliminates certain insurance rebates for second homes. My amendment would not change homeowners' flood insurance policies or even reduce the new taxpayer subsidy we are going to give them. It simply removes a retroactive reimbursement for second homes.

Essentially we ask that working families around the country, including taxpayers in my State, not have to cut an additional check to the owners of coastal vacation houses. I know of no one who objects to my provision on policy grounds. Let me repeat that. I don't know of anyone, not one person who has raised a policy objection to the amendment I have offered. It is an objective improvement to the underlying policy and this is what the Senate is supposed to do. Yet the supporters of the bill have been blocking any amendments that may garner bipartisan support to hold together a deal that has been negotiated in a backroom, written in secret by only a few Members, perhaps with the influence of a few people who may be interested in that. These ``masters of the universe'' as my friend Senator Sessions has sometimes referred to them, are shutting the American people out of the process.

I asked for 10 minutes and a vote on a single unobjectionable germane amendment to a bill the public has never before seen, but it seems this may be a bridge too far for the ``masters of the universe,'' as my friend from Alabama likes to call them.

So in an effort hopefully to change one of the more offensive policies in the bill, one that provides a refund of premiums paid under the law to homeowners of second vacation homes from a program that is already $24 billion in the hole, I agree to a vote on my amendment as a stand-alone bill. I have assurances from the House majority leader that he will work to get the policy considered in the House and I take him at his word.

I urge my colleagues to support my bill to protect the American people from being asked to fund--to refund premiums paid under current law to owners of second homes and vacation homes.

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