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The National Flood Insurance Program is a voluntary program. If a community really feels that the building insurance requirements are too burdensome, they don't have to participate.

Today more than 20,000 communities participate in the National Flood Insurance Program. More than 90 insurance companies sell and service flood service insurance. There are more than four million policies covering the total of $800 billion.

Homeowners and business owners across the country agreed to pay premiums, communities agreed to adopt building codes to mitigate flood dangers, and the Federal Government agreed to provide insurance coverage to policyholders after a disaster.

Most floods are caused by man, not weather; deforestation, levee construction, erosion, and overgrazing all result in the loss of ecosystem services.

I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid.

New flood maps in many states have raised the estimation of flood risks along rivers, streams and oceans, adding many properties to flood zones for the first time.

In more than 500 instances, from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine, FEMA has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.

If we can find a way to keep floodwater in reserve and to use it when it's needed, it will be a double boon.

You know, we lose more homes every year to flooding than we do any other event in America.