R.J. Lehmann on NFIP Debt
ClimateWire – ICLE Editor-in-Chief R.J. Lehmann was quoted by ClimateWire about a congressional proposal to forgive the National Flood Insurance Program’s more than $20 billion in debt to the U.S. Treasury. The full story is available here.
“It’s a reasonable thing to seek to address. There are people who cannot pay risk-based rates,” said R.J. Lehmann, a flood insurance expert at the International Center for Law & Economics.
…Some people such as Lehmann, the insurance expert, wanted the debt to force FEMA to make its insurance program better able to sustain itself.
The proposed debt forgiveness “is significant in that it amounts to declaring surrender on significant NFIP reform that looks to address the structural issues of the program — that it does not raise enough money and subsidizes developments in risky, environmentally sensitive regions,” Lehmann said.