Winners and losers. Angry because the misery index for some members is more important for the misery index in my district or the northeast. Five years ago, we were about a month of month after Superstorm Sandy. We had political handtohand combat to get what the rest of the nation has gotten almost automatically with every Natural Disaster in the whole course of our nations history. But no, Superstorm Sandy, there had to be an offset. We barely got the help we needed. And this is all tied in together because we still have people suffering in new jersey and new york and the northeast from the aftermath of sandy. Its tied to this, federal Flood Insurance. Its critically important. Why should it be that the concerns of my district and the people that i represent have any less of an influence on what happens here . Im angry and im disappointed that i have to fight with my own party on these issues. Im not at all sorry to stand up as strongly as i can for the constituent who deserve this, hard working people who are trying to stay in their homes. I know the program has problems. I know we have to do this in a different way. And we had an opportunity to do it in a bipartisan way. Where all of our constituents should have been helped. Instead of picking winners and losers. Im sick and tired of having to defend the people in my district and the people inform northeast from policies that dont mean the right thing for us. Please do the right thing. Vote no. Lets come back with a bill that makes sense. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The gentleman from new jersey yields back. The gentlewoman from california. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Hensarling im pleased to yield one and a half minutes to the gentleman from georgia, another respected member of our committee, mr. Lauder milk. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Loudermilk thank you, mr. Speaker. I want to thank mr. Hensarling and mr. Duffy for their work on this bill. They have labored endless hours to bring this to the floor and we are appreciative of that. The fact that we are here today show ours legislative process is working and we are doing the challenging work the American People sense us here to do, work that isnt always easy. Quite often its hard. But it is the right thing to do. After months of hard work, the Financial Services committee passed a package of bills in june to reform and reauthorize the National FloodInsurance Program. Mr. Speaker, many of these bills in that package passed with unanimous support. You only have unanimous support with strong bipartisan support. Now after lengthy negotiations, we are taking up this compromised bill that will significantly improve the nfip and protect americas taxpayers. The 21st century flood reform act will make major strides to grow the private Flood Insurance market and start to put the nfip on a fiscally sustainable path. It will also implement flood mapping improvements and increased transparency andties closure so policy helders holders know the true risk of floods at their property. The bill also includes an amendment i introduced with my good colleague and dear friend from georgia, representative david scott. The nfip is far too complicated for policyholders, insurers and mortgage lend source this amendment that passed with unanimous support call farce g. A. O. Study on how the program may be simplified and streamlined. The nfip authorization expires december 8. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this worthy program. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired this egentlelady from california is recognized. Ms. Waters i yield one minute to the gentleman from new york a Senior Member of the Financial Service committees who has worked a long time for bipartisanship on reauthorization of the National FloodInsurance Program. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for one minute. I thank the gentlelady. I asked my side for time, they had no time available, i thank the gentlelady for coming to my rescue on this i feel strongly about this and echo the comments of mr. Lobiondo. Mr. King without grandfathering we could see premium skies rocket. When mr. Lobiondo and i tried to ameliorate this by suggesting a compromise by putting a 5,000 cap on dream yums, we rejected it. When mr. Lobiondo talked about the bias against the northeast, that bias continues. Louisiana, texas, florida, puerto rico, all receive tax relief following their storms. To this day, voters in my district have not received that tax relief. Mr. Lobiondos district is the same. We in the northeasting get treated, we do not get a fair shake. Maybe we dont they dont need our votes. I urge a vote in opposition. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Hensarling im pleased to recognize the gentleman from new jersey a hardworking member of the Financial Services committee, mr. Mcarthur. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Mcarthur i also am from the northeast and im from new jersey and i rise in support of this bill today. Five years ago, Superstorm Sandy devastated by district. Ocean county, my home, was the epicenter of the storm. You might remember the photographs of the iconic jetstar roller coaster sitting in the ocean. That was my district. Even today i have thousands of constituents still out of their homes. Now thousands more are experiencing the same thing because of hurricanes harvey, irma, and maria. 140 million americans live in coastal counties an the nfip has done a lot to help with zoning standards, building standards, floodplain management standards. It hasnt been run perfectly but this program is desperately needed by people in areas like mine. The nfip has fiscal issues than bill seeks to address them. It is the only federal Disaster Program that actually collects money in advance of a disaster. When i got on this committee, a year ago, i set out on this issue to do four things. A longterm reauthorization, improve affordability, increase accountability, and enhance mitigation efforts. This is a fiveyear reauthorization. It reduces the mandatory annual cap on premium increases. It brings more accountability including my language to forbid nfip from hiring disbarred lawyers, and it doubles the mitigation coverage from 30,000 to 60,000. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from new jerseys time has expired this egentleman from texas reserves. The gentlelady from california is recognized. Ms. Waters i yield two minutes to the gentleman from massachusetts a Senior Member of the committee on Financial Services and a strong progress i leader, mr. Capuano. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for two mins. Mr capuano thank you, mr. Speaker, i thank the gentlelady for yielding. I dont know if i need two minutes. This bill has some good things in it. Everybody admits that. It does. Like every bill ive ever voted on, theres some good, theres some bad. But this bill has more bad in it than good. It has some good flsfi i wont agree with the details, i agree we should do something about repet ty loss profits. I think everybody agrees with that. But not the draconian measures taken in this bill. We all agree that we need to help make it a stable fiscal platform. But not with this bill does. Thats the problem here. This is not a ive seen worse bills. Ive seen worse Flood Insurance bills. So this i will have to admit, it is an improvement over the last horrendous Flood Insurance bill. But its not even close yet. D this is a missed opportunity. Flood insurance doesnt need to be partisan. It doesnt need to be based on philosophical purity. This is a necessity to many americans, many middle class americans, and there is no doubt without winning or losing any votes at home we could work this out if the majority wanted to. But you dont. You dont want any democratic votes. Apparently you dont want all the republican votes. Why . I dont know. Maybe lighting candles at the altar of certain philosophies. When this bill, not if, but when this bill fails in the senate youre going to find a lot of people who continue to want to work with you to come up with a bill we can all embrace. I know that will happen and i look forward to that day. This bill isnt it. And everybody here knows it. With that, i will thank the gentlelady for yielding and i will yield back the remainder of my timeful the speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The gentlelady from california reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Hensarling im pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from oregon, mr. Blumenauer, as senior democrat and leader of Environmental Issues in the house. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. Mr. Blumenauer i appreciate the gentlemans courtesy. Ive enjoyed listening to the debate back and forth. Theres no area in congress ive spent more time on over the course of the last 20 years than dealing with Flood Insurance. I was author of the last major piece with our former colleague. I agree with much of what was said on both sides there is remaining significant problems. Insurance is not priced properly. Its not that its too expensive or too cheap. Its not priced properly. We have some winners and losers now. But too many people are subsidized by the majority. Were not doing all that we can. The federal government ends up holding the bag for billions of dollars for unnecessary flood damage with storm after storm after storm and by the way, there are more on the way. It doesnt have to be this way. Part of the problem is that because inevitably, when we talk about reform, it costs money. And there are some people who end up paying more. And its easy not to update the maps. Its easy not to have people pay actuarial rates. Its easy not to force local governments to do their job and not allow building in harms way. I strongly agree that in times past, low income and minority people were subjected to real problems and more flooding than one would than they should have. But now is the time to try and pivot and do something about it. Mr. Chairman, id like to submit a list of groups that are supporting this legislation and its an interesting collection. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Blumenauer it includes environmental groups, consumer group, housing advocates, business, fiscal watchdogs and taxpayer advocates. All of them dont agree with every detail. Many of them would identify with some of the debates. But they agree this bill is a step in the right direction and we should use it. What we vote on today and i hope it pass, im going to vote for it, is not the last word. It wednesday its way through the legislative process. If we all do our job, making it better, we can have that high five moment that i think we all look forward to. Thank you and i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. The gentlelady from california reserves im sorry, the gentleman from texas reserves, the gentlelady from california. Ms. Waters i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Hensarling im pleased to yield three and a half minutes to the gentleman from wisconsin, the chairman of the housing and insurance subcommittee, and the sponsor of the legislation, the 21st century flood reform act, mr. Duffy. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for 3 1 2 minutes. Mr. Duffy thank you, mr. Speaker. I want to thank chairman hensarling for all his good and relentless hard work on this bill. I appreciate his tenacity. I want to thank mr. Blumenauer for the comment he is just made. Now the two of us have not worked together on a lot of issues but this is one we saw eyetoeye in. Through flood, i think weve een a lot of Common Ground and worked together, i actually promised id wear a bike today and i forgot, ill wear it late. This has been an effort on bipartisanship. Ive worked with graves and scalise and king and lobiondo and macarthur. On the democrat side i worked with mr. Scott, mrs. Maloney, ms. Velazquez, all concerned about the northeast and the sandy reforms necessary to learn the lessons. Weve included those reforms in this bill. I sat down countless hours with the Ranking Member, she shared her phone number with me, left me at the dance though because before this thing was done she walked away. We tried to get a bipartisan bill. We worked on this thing together. So to Say Something other than that is not fair, its not right. We have tried you might not like the end product but we have gone a great distance to get a bill that everybody can agree on. And i think were going to get that today. I want to talk about a few things. Were 25 billion in debt. A deficit of 1. 5 billion a year this program is not sustainable. We have people who are building homes in harms way. They get flooded. Multiple times. The chairman and i saw a homeowner that was flooded three times in 10 years. One homeowner let his house left his house to get his kids who were swept away in flood waters, we rebuild those homes and risk the lives of firefighters and First Responders to save them. This policy is unacceptable, its not compassionate. I hear my friends say youre going to hurt homeowners, rates are going to skyrocket. What . On average, for a year, the price of Flood Insurance, on average, will go up 20. Less than 2 a month and theyre screaming bloody murder about that . I got a list of 30 things of great reform we get in this bill to help homeowners. Yes, highly Subsidized Properties will pay a little more, a little higher escalator. But we spend 1 billion on mitigation, helping people floodproof their homes, helping people get bought out of their home and get to Higher Ground so they dont have to live in a home that continuely is flooded. I dont know if you have lived in a flood home but it aint fun. Its horrible. Get them out. 1 billion for that program. We help communities with their mapping. We give them options to map, and we give them an appeals process in their mapping. Great reform. We set up a private market. Now, you dont have to take the private market, but you have an option to get a private plan that might have a better rate than the government offers you. You have a choice. A choice. God forbid a choice. That gives you a better price. And by the way, when we get the private market in, we all flowed our risk to the private sector. When a disaster hits texas or florida, its not just the taxpayers that bear all the burden. We have private companies in play. Thats a great thing. This is a good bill. This is a bipartisan bill. Lets stand together and reform a program to help the homeowner and our National Debt. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. The gentleman from texas reserves. The gentlelady from california is recognized. Ms. Waters thank you very much. I have no further requests for time. And i am prepared to close and i yield myself the remainder of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady is recognized. Ms. Waters and let me say to my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle, my chairman, mr. Hensarling and mr. Duffy, we did work very hard to try to get a very bipartisan bill. As i negotiated with them, every time i reached an impasse i thought about sandy and how hard democrats had to work to provide support for an area that should have gotten the support for every one everyone in the congress of the United States. However, there was a demand from the opposite side of the aisle that it had to be paid for. And so we worked very hard to give them assistance, and they still have not been made whole. And every time i reached an impasse, i thought about louisiana and the work that i had done after katrina and the visits i made there, the people that i got to know and what i really have learned to understand about affordability. And every time i reached an impasse, i thought about florida. I thought about texas and what has happened recently from these storms. And so having worked in this way and having been a coauthor of biggertwaters, and having been the author of the Homeowner Insurance flood affordability, i think i know something about storms, something about the devastation that had been caused to the families and communities and i insist on affordability. Mr. Chairman, as democrats and some republicans have made clear, this is a comprehensively bad bill that is harmful for families and businesses. In the wake of one of the most disastrous hurricane seasons in history, this bill will make Flood Insurance more expensive, less available for americans. I have repeatedly stated that affordability is my top priority which is made worse by this bill even with the slight reinvestigations that the chairman has made, coverage will still be less available and cherrypicking by the private sector will be encouraged. Putting the government on the hook for the riskiest of policies. And its important to note that the biggest challenge to the National FloodInsurance Program is its massive debt with the bill only addresses by charging hardworking americans more for their Flood Insurance. Thats just not fair. And so we have comprehensive support for this bill from both the private sector and from our nonprofits. I dont know about any consumer organizations that supports this bill, but i do know this. I know that i worked very hard to talk about mitigation and how i thought it could be a program that the locals could be involved with with the federal government. I know i worked very hard dealing with the repetitive occurrences that the chairman was concerned about. But i also offered alternatives to what hes advocating. I talked about outreach and educati