Providing for Consideration of H.R. 5114, Flood Insurance Reform Priorities Act of 2010

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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlelady's courtesy in permitting me to speak on the rule, as I have appreciated her work in her community over the years dealing with the consequences of flooding and water damage.

I rise in support of the rule and reluctantly am supporting the underlying bill.

I have great sympathy for the work that was done by the Financial Services Committee. I understand what horrible timing it is to deal with the huge losses in housing value, other real estate markets, as well as unemployment and the economic slowdown. We are all reluctant to put any additional pressure on people who are located in harm's way.

But I will tell you, having worked on flood insurance reform now for over a decade, there is never a good time to fix this program. The tragedy of Katrina 5 years ago dramatically illustrated both the need for, and the flaws in, our flood insurance program and environmental protections.

For generations, local and State governments and, sadly, in some cases, the Federal Government itself has encouraged people to live in harm's way. Over time, this has become a much more expensive proposition while we have accelerated the potential for disastrous floods as we've engineered our rivers, while we've encouraged filling in wetlands that used to be nature's sponges, and we have more people in the areas that are subjected to even worse flooding.

Now we have the situation where global warming is creating weather instability, extreme weather events, brutal rains and winds that make what was once a one in 100 years or one in 500 year event, sadly routine. We have seen on the floor of this House people come to the floor dealing with 500-year floods that have happened in relatively short time frames, and it is going to continue accelerating in the future.

We need to make sure that FEMA has the resources to do this important mapping job properly, and we need to have the gumption to support FEMA after it has gone through the process and done the mapping right, to enforce that mapping. We need to make sure that people who are in harm's way are encouraged to protect their properties, and after repeated damage, that we don't just keep putting people back in harm's way but help them be located more safely.

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Mr. BLUMENAUER. It is important that we no longer put the taxpayer on the hook for massive losses and have the rest of the people who pay flood insurance pay higher premiums while people who should start making some modification waiting 10 years before they pay their own way.

This bill is a compromise, but I am hopeful that Congress can do more work to make a compromise that is more effective and long term because this is the tip of the iceberg. If we don't get it right, we're going to be back here time and time again on the hook for more and more money and more loss of life and property.

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