FEMA Gets Specific in Urging Congress to Act on NFIP Reform and Reauthorization

Agency submits letter outlining 17 legislative proposals

In a letter to Congressional leadership, FEMA outlined 17 legislative proposals for reforming the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and urged Congress to pass a 10-year reauthorization plan before the program’s statutory authority expires on Sept. 30.

Spanning roughly 100 pages, the proposals in the May 11 letter address a number of key reforms and are grounded in the following guiding principles:

• Ensuring more Americans are covered by flood insurance by making insurance more affordable to low-and-moderate income policyholders.
• Building climate resilience by transforming the communication of risk and providing Americans with tools to manage their flood risk.
• Reducing risk, losses, and disaster suffering by strengthening local floodplain management minimum standards and addressing extreme repetitive loss properties
• Instituting a sound and transparent financial framework that allows the NFIP to balance affordability and fiscal soundness.

The NFIP has been operating under a series short-term extensions since the last multi-year reauthorization expired on Sept. 30, 2017 – 21 extensions in all, including three brief lapses. These frequent short-term extensions “are disruptive and cause existing and potential policyholders to lose confidence in the NFIP as a reliable insurance program available to protect their homes and contents from the risk of flooding,” the letter stated.

Download the full legislative proposal as well as a breakdown of specific components.

ASFPM has long advocated for substantial NFIP reform, including appearing last month before the House Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development, and Insurance. As part of the proceedings,  ASFPM provided oral and written testimony — outlining more than 20 specific recommendations for strengthening the NFIP across all four facets: floodplain mapping, floodplain management standards, flood hazard mitigation, and flood insurance.

Earlier this year, ASFPM urged NFIP reform with better mapping, regulation, mitigation, and insurance provisions to protect communities from increasing flood risk associated with climate change. You can review those recommendations here. In 2021, ASFPM and NRDC petitioned FEMA to update its rules for construction and land-use in floodplains, and to develop maps that project future flood risk.