Urban Flooding Awareness Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, as Members of Congress continue to debate whether or not climate change is real, Americans are paying the price. To the climate doubters that I serve with, I will remind them that there are over 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies that conclude that climate change is real and that man contributes to it, and there are zero peer-reviewed scientific studies that say the opposite.

Climate change often brings images to mind of melting icecaps and rising sea levels, but the effects of climate change are being felt every day by people around the country. Climate change is causing even more destructive storms which, when combined with our aging infrastructure, is resulting in cities around the country being pummeled by urban flooding.

A little more than 2 years ago, residents in my district endured their second 100-year flood in a mere 3 years. A 100-year storm means that there is a 1 percent chance that a storm of that magnitude will happen every year, but folks in Chicago are experiencing these storms with greater intensity and frequency.

The morning after the rains bombarded Chicago in 2013, I visited numerous community members and their homes. The damage I saw was devastating: thousands of homes and businesses flooded; tons of carpeting, furniture, and memories are ruined; businesses shattered; and entrepreneurs' dreams crushed, along with millions of dollars in damages.

Throughout the region, we saw the closure of schools, libraries, and even hospitals were forced to relocate patients. That kind of devastation cannot be ignored. Our constituents cannot be ignored.

In Chicago, over the past century, we have seen countless storms that have caused pipes to back up into houses and dump upwards of 1.5 inches of rain in a single day. What is more, rains of more than 2.5 inches a day are expected to increase another 50 percent in the next 20 years.

The National Climate Assessment, released by the Obama administration last year, predicted that the frequency and intensity of the Midwest's heaviest downpours will more than double over the next 100 years. That means even more trouble for our Nation's already deteriorating infrastructure and the cities around the country that rely on that infrastructure to keep them safe. Storm drains are outdated; sewers are inadequate, and families are at risk.

Whether it is because of flooded pipes or the lack of permeable surfaces in our cities, our constituents are paying the prices. Thousands of households in America are affected every year by urban flooding, yielding catastrophic economic, environmental, and social damage in some of our country's largest cities. Basements with water damage decrease property values by an estimated 10 to 25 percent.

But the impacts don't end there. Chronically damp houses can cause respiratory problems and higher insurance costs. Additionally, almost two out of five small businesses cannot open after experiencing a flooding disaster. Urban flooding erodes streams and riverbeds and degrades the quality of our drinking water sources and the health of our aquatic ecosystems.

It is time we come up with a national response to this growing problem. That is why I am proud to introduce the Urban Flooding Awareness Act. This legislation will finally create a definition of urban flooding to be used when designing flood maps and will require a first-of-its-kind study to analyze the costs associated with urban flooding and develop solutions. It would also help us better protect downstream communities from the flooding impacts of development in upstream areas.

Existing regulatory and policy mechanisms are not adequate for this task. It is time we develop new strategies. By identifying the most effective and economical remedies to urban flooding, we are better preparing our communities to defend themselves against the devastation caused by increasingly intense weather.

And investing in real solutions to this problem now is the only way to avoid higher costs down the road. We can learn from our successes and investigate innovative new strategies for funding crucial new programs that eliminate flood risk and damage. Our cities need the best tools available if they are going to survive this era of supersized storms.

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