Landrieu to TMAC: There’s A Lot You Can Learn From Louisiana
Senator sends letter to Technical Mapping Advisory Council urging them to give Louisiana a seat at the table as they work to improve FEMA’s fundamentally flawed flood maps
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WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., Chair of the Senate Homeland Appropriations Subcommittee, sent a letter to John Dorman, Council Chair for the Technical Mapping Advisory Council (TMAC), urging him to use his existing authority to engage experts from Louisiana as they provide recommendations to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) about how they can improve the accuracy and reliability of their flood maps that serve as the foundation for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Currently, there are no members serving on the TMAC that are from Louisiana. The letter outlined the unique conditions that occur in coastal Louisiana that differ from most flood zone systems across the country. The models and other analyses being employed today by FEMA to construct flood maps are primarily based on inland riverine flood events that differ significantly from coastal flood events occurring in Louisiana. Following the inaugural meeting of the TMAC, Sen. Landrieu pressed the newly elected Council Chair to utilize the unique experience and expertise Louisiana has to offer and avoid repeating the same mistakes FEMA has already made. Read the letter below or online. “I am proud to represent the people of Louisiana and believe that we have an important perspective to offer that will inform and enhance the Council’s recommendations to FEMA. Since 2008, Lafourche Parish has been appealing their flood map because FEMA cannot figure out how to give them credit for an 8-16 foot, 40 mile ring levee that was authorized by Congress in 1965, and I do not believe the Technical Mapping Advisory Council will be able to help address that issue without having a Louisiana voice at the table,” said Sen. Landrieu. “We cannot make good decisions without good maps, and I will continue to press FEMA and the TMAC throughout this process to make sure they get it right.” In July, Sen. Landrieu held a hearing with the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee entitled, “Insuring our Future: Building a Flood Insurance Program We Can Live With, Grow With, and Prosper With,” and pressed FEMA on the need for accurate flood maps and insisted that subject matter experts from Louisiana be included in the TMAC’s process of providing recommendations to FEMA.
SEN. LANDRIEU’S ONGOING EFFORTS TO BE A BETTER, MORE AFFORDABLE FLOOD INSURANCE PROGRAM As part of her ongoing efforts to build a more affordable National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), last month Sen. Landrieu announced that she included $100 million for FEMA to update and correct flawed flood maps across the country. The Senator reversed the President’s $11-million cut to the program and added an additional $5 million after David Miller, the head of FEMA’s NFIP, testified in May that most of the nation’s flood maps are not accurate and reliable. When added to the $121 million in fees dedicated to mapping activities, the bill provides $221 million total for updating flood maps. The funding is part of the bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security for FY2015 and keeps the promises that Sen. Landrieu made earlier this month in New Orleans to reverse the President’s shortsighted cut to the program. Called the Paul Revere of flood insurance for her early warnings about the flawed 2012 Biggert-Waters flood insurance bill, Sen. Landrieu worked to build a bipartisan and geographically diverse coalition of senators to repeal the most pernicious provisions of the law and to return affordability as the centerpiece of the National Flood Insurance Program. She was instrumental in adding additional affordability protections in the final version of the bill. One of those provisions, the 18 percent individual annual property cap, is being implemented currently to prevent skyrocketing year-over-year rate increases. This follows her announcement that the property sales trigger, which had frozen the real-estate market and threatened to rob middle class families of their wealth, is gone. View a timeline of Sen. Landrieu's work to fix flood insurance and learn more about her #MyHomeMyStory effort, a movement to make flood insurance affordable. In May, Sen. Landrieu announced that FEMA fully repealed one of the most harmful provisions from Biggert-Waters that made it impossible for new buyers of homes or businesses to assume a property’s existing flood insurance policy. The provision, repealed by the Home Flood Insurance Affordability Act, had frozen real estate markets throughout the nation and threatened to wipe out the equity thousands of middle class families had built in their homes.
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