Efforts to ease a massive spike in the cost of some flood insurance policies have been stymied on Capitol Hill. Congress won’t address the issue until the New Year, if at all.
Some insurance policies are sky rocketing because of a law Congress passed. Some homeowners are reporting going from, say, a $1,000 a year policy to a $16,000 dollar policy. South Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings says that makes those properties untouchable.“And our education system is hooked to property taxes and if we don’t have houses moving and people are not buying then we’re going to find ourselves go bust, so it’s the biggest problem that I’ve seen in quite a while”, Hastings said.
The House has now gone home for the holidays without addressing the issue. And a Republican senator blocked Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson from bringing the bill to the floor in the upper chamber.
“For somebody to object to that that is just beyond the pale of common sense and it shows how dysfunctional Washington, D.C. and ideological and partisan it is today”, said Nelson.
A bipartisan group of nearly thirty senators support the flood insurance reform bill, but it’s unclear when the chamber will vote on the issue next year.