Shelby Opposes Dismantling of Flood Insurance Reform

Press Release

U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Vice Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, today delivered a speech on the Senate floor in firm opposition to S. 1926, a bill that would dismantle critical reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) that were passed into law just two years ago.

"One of the goals of the reforms was to ensure that the 5.6 million flood insurance policyholders could collect on their policies if they were ever to suffer a flood loss -- something that cannot be guaranteed by a flood insurance program that is currently $25 billion in debt," Shelby said in his speech. "The program is bankrupt and only operating by the grace of the American taxpayer."

Shelby, a former Chairman and Ranking Member of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee; spent several years working in a bipartisan manner toward necessary reform of the NFIP. In today's speech, he urged measured and specific fixes to any issues in implementing the reforms:

"I concede that there are some issues with the implementation of Biggert-Waters that were not anticipated. But, those can be addressed in discrete ways that do not require the "stop everything' approach that the proponents of this legislation are advocating.

"Congress is often criticized for being unable to fix anything. Well, in 2012 we took a very significant step towards fixing the National Flood Insurance Program. And now, we have a bill before us that will undo virtually every reform we enacted less than two years ago.

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