Date: 2010-07-15
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank my good friend. the gentlewoman from California for the time. and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Almost 18 years ago. in 1993. I first arrived in Congress right in the aftermath of the greatest natural disaster that had ever hit south Florida. August 24. 1992. Hurricane Andrew. a category 5 storm with wind gusts of over 200 miles per hour. hit our community and devastated it. That storm caused over $26 billion of damage to south Florida. Entire communities were destroyed. Until Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast in 2005. Hurricane Andrew was the costliest natural disaster in American history. We in south Florida were very fortunate to receive generous assistance from our fellow Americans in the wake of Hurricane Andrew. That assistance was vital for our recovery. and I wont forget the support and compassion my colleagues in this Chamber demonstrated during those difficult times. The National Flood Insurance Program. established by Congress in 1968. was designed to provide an alternative to disaster assistance and to reduce the costs of repairing flood damage to buildings caused by hurricanes or inland flooding of rivers. lakes. or streams. Approximately 20.000 communities across the country participate in the program by adopting and enforcing floodplain management regulations to reduce future flood damage. In exchange. federally backed flood insurance becomes available to homeowners. renters. and business owners in those communities. The NFIP was selfsupporting through policy premiums and fees until 2005 when the program incurred approximately $17 billion in flood claims caused by hurricanes Katrina. Rita. and Wilma. Currently. the program is over $18 billion in debt. Reauthorization of the NFIP is very important to the economy in south Florida. Without the program. home buyers are unable to close on new homes. suppressing home sales at a time when theyre desperately needed in south Florida. For example. a constituent. Chris ONeal. wrote to me last month asking for Congress to reauthorize this program. Because the majority had let the program lapse. he and his family were unable to close on their new home and they faced being homeless because their current landlord had forced them to vacate their home. Mr. ONeals case wasnt an isolated incident. A number of my constituents have been unable to close on their new homes. and its my understanding that many throughout the country face a similar situation. This underlying legislation would rectify that problem and would reauthorize the NFIP through 2015. The bill provides premium discounts to assist residents in newly designated flood hazard areas who would be subject to a new requirement to purchase flood insurance during a phasein period of 5 years. Other provisions include extending the Severe Repetitive Loss grant program to allow government buyouts of properties with frequent and severe losses to reduce program losses in the long term. The bill also allows for premiums to be paid in installments for lowerincome property owners. thereby helping them to afford flood insurance and encouraging them to continue to purchase protection. Although I support the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker. it could have been better. especially if the TaylorScalise amendment had been made in order. Their amendment would allow coastal homeowners to buy an option for both wind and flood insurance coverage from the NFIP. This option would be extremely helpful to coastal communities like south Florida and the gulf coast. Unfortunately. the majority on the Rules Committee decided to block even debate on that amendment. And not only did they block the TaylorScalise amendment. they blocked out nearly 90 percent of the Republican amendments submitted to the Rules Committee while allowing nearly twothirds of the Democratic amendments. So today we will consider three minority and eight majority amendments. plus another 10 majority amendments included in the managers amendment. Thats quite a contrast. Its especially unfortunate when you consider we were told that the process was going to change. that it wasnt going to be this way. The distinguished Speaker promised the American people that her party would run the most open and bipartisan Congress in history. Yet week after week. the majority continues to block an open process. We have yet to consider even one open rule during the entire 111th Congress. not even on the historically open appropriations bills. Thats quite sad. I reserve the balance of my time.