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Weekly UpdatesRight in the midst of hurricane season but before a major one has hit, two key House members introduced a bill on July 9 to extend the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) through March 31, 2010. The current program is due to expire at the end of September--"right in the middle of hurricane season," as the news release announcing the extension pointed out.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) and Financial Services Housing Subcommittee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-California) were the two members who took the lead in introducing the new legislation. The two senior lawmakers announced it is their intent to draft "a new bipartisan measure to reform the NFIP."
In a press release announcing the bill, Waters was quoted saying, "We saw the importance of this program following Hurricane Katrina and other storms that have devastated the Gulf Coast. Letting the program expire in the middle of hurricane season would have very serious repercussions for areas prone to flooding. A six-month extension is prudent and necessary."
The reform legislation that will be hammered out in the interim is expected to incorporate some of the important reforms to the NFIP approved by the House in 2007. But it will also "consider new studies and information not available when the committee last reviewed the NFIP," the committee release stated. Waters and Frank intend to seek input from Obama administration officials and representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other interested parties when it comes time to start the process of fashioning the reform legislation, the announcement said.
Chairman Frank said, "This program is very important and very much in need of revision." He added, "Passing an extension of the act will prevent any gap in the important work it does while giving us the chance to improve it both from the economic and environmental perspectives."
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