The House voted to block what some called "a death sentence" if FEMA's proposed rate increases would take place. The vote for passage was 306-91. The number of Democrats voting yes was 180, the number of Republicans voting yes was 126. Voting against the measure were 5 Democrats and 86 Republicans. So once again in the past few months a majority of Democrats in the U.S. House provided the winning vote margin (even though the Republicans controls the U.S. House) for a important piece of legislation.
The house bill now goes to the U.S. Senate who passed their flood bill on January 30th. The Senate can accept the House bill or vote to take it to a committee of house and senate members to resolve the issue. The senate bill delays most of the increases for 4 years while the house bill allows increases on flood premiums up to 15% a year. This writer believes the senate bill is the better bill.
The maximum increase of 15% a year that the house bill calls for has a compounding effect and you could reach a 50% increase in rates in just a few years because of the compounding effect. Since congress is scheduled to take another look at this in 2017, the senate bill is better and there would be more time to come up with even a better answer to this problem before 2017.
All of Louisiana's delegation in the house voted for the house bill. It should be noted that Steve Scalise and the rest of the Louisiana delegation could not produce the winning majority even though their party controls the house. It took Cedric Richmond and the Democrats to produce the winning majority.
This writer also thinks solving the flood insurance problem is a long way off if it is congress's intention to make the program solvent like they are talking about. The latest report is the program is $24 billion in debt. The people of Louisiana are still paying high premiums for their home owners policies ever since Katrina and flood insurance premiums is just a different side of the same coin. Neither the house or senate bill addresses the real problem.
The Biggert-Waters Act that was passed in 2012 created the flood insurance problem and there is still much division in congress as to how to come up with a long term solution that would produce flood premiums that would be affordable. This issue is just another of many reasons why we need serious public servants in congress.
This commentary written by John Lucia.
Note: The Democrats in the House also produced the winning majority votes when the House voted to put the country back to work after the Republican majority voted to shut the government down. The Democrats in the House also produced the winning majority votes when the House voted to extend the debt ceiling. The Democrats were aware that the federal deficit has been reduced dramatically by the Obama Administration. The Republicans were aware also but their vow not to lift a finger to help the President over road their responsibility to move the country and its people forward.
