Quote

NBC News found that FEMA has redrawn maps even for properties that have repeatedly filed claims for flood losses from previous storms. At least some of the properties are on the secret 'repetitive loss list' that FEMA sends to communities to alert them to problem properties.

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.

I think the federal flood insurance program is actuarially unsound and renders private insurance not viable, thereby needing an overhaul going forward.

Flooding damage is not customary for New York, especially downstate.

In addition, the oil royalties the Federal Government does not collect from big oil will starve the Land and Water Conservation Fund of critical financial resources.

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.

The bottom line is that weather events not only threaten private property and family budgets, but they also can decimate public resources and government coffers.

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

We must not risk defunding environmental conservation programs, which is why Congress should reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund to preserve our natural resources.

It defies logic that protections against predatory debt collection practices don't apply to debt collectors hired by the federal government.