NFIP legislation needs quick action: RIMS on the Hill speaker
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WASHINGTON—Supporters of a Senate measure that would reform and extend the National Flood Insurance Program for five years “need to get this bill on the floor and fast,” a real estate industry representative told risk managers at the RIMS on the Hill conference Monday.
Austin Perez, senior analyst at the National Assn. of Realtors, noted that the program has been the subject of more than a dozen short-term extensions since 2008, the most recent of which came last week with the House of Representatives approving a Senate measure that extended the debt-ridden program through July 30. President Barack Obama signed that bill into law on Thursday.
The House already had approved a measure that would extend the program for five years. The Senate is expected to follow suit with its own long-term extension bill—which won the approval of the Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee this year—perhaps as early as this month.
Reforming and extending the NFIP is “an opportunity for a bipartisan win in a year divisible by four,” said Mr. Perez during the Washington conference in referring to the upcoming elections in November.
