R.J. Lehmann on NFIP debt

BestWire – ICLE Editor-in-Chief and Senior Fellow R.J. Lehmann was quoted in a BestWire story about the Senate Banking Committee’s hearing on reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program. You can read the full piece (behind a subscriber firewall) here. 

The NFIP remains $20.5 billion in debt to U.S. taxpayers after Congress forgave $16 billion in debt in 2017, said R.J. Lehmann, editor-in-chief and senior fellow at the International Center for Law & Economics.

Should Congress forgive the program’s remaining debt, the NFIP’s “existing $30.425 billion borrowing authority would be far too large to offer any meaningful check,” he said. “Congress should instead simply set the borrowing authority cap 1% of the NFIP’s total insurance in-force.

“Based on its current total of $1.3 trillion, this would mean the NFIP could borrow up to $13 billion without needing further authorization,” he said.