The House is expected next week to pass legislation to extend the nation’s troubled flood insurance program until the end of of November, after lawmakers failed once again to reach a deal on reforming the program.
While the Senate plans to remain in session most of the summer, the House leaves town on Thursday and won’t return until after Labor Day. House lawmakers will leave without reaching a House-Senate agreement on reforming the National Flood Insurance Program.
Republicans and Democrats disagree over whether to move toward privatization of the program, which Democrats fear will lead to cherry-picking property owners that would leave the most vulnerable without coverage.
Republicans see privatization as an answer because the NFIB is insolvent — its costs exceed premiums by $1.4 billion annually, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The program was about $30 billion in debt as of last fall following years of significant flood and hurricane damage dating that required borrowing from the Treasury.
In October, Congress passed and President Trump signed a disaster relief bill that wrote off $16 billion in debt, which taxpayers must now absorb.
Disagreement over privatization has prevented progress on the issue for years, which is why an extension of the current program is the only available option. The House passed a reform bill last year, but the Senate has struggled to reach a bipartisan agreement needed to overcome a 60-vote filibuster threshold in the upper chamber.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner the Senate had no immediate plans to take up a short-term extension of the current program, which expires at the end of July.
“It’s an issue and I keep hearing it about my constituents in Texas,” Cornyn said. “They are worried about flood insurance.”
The Senate passed an extension that expires in January, but it is included in a Farm Bill reauthorization measure that won’t clear Congress by the deadline.
The House bill would extend the program until Nov. 30, which is the end of the hurricane season.
Forecasters predict four hurricanes will strike the U.S. this season, one of them Category 3 strength.
“We will extend floor insurance to November 30 as we continue to work through the other differences we have,” Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said. “We do not want flood insurance to lapse.”
The clock is also ticking for Congress on the dozen annual spending bills that must be passed each year to keep the government running. But the House won’t complete the dozen spending bills that make up the federal budget before it leaves next week.
McCarthy said that by the end of next week, the Appropriations Committee will have cleared all 12 bills. But only half have cleared the House floor and none have made it to President Trump’s desk.
The House and Senate are working on an agreement to pass a trio of spending bills in a “minibus” measure that would fund military construction, veterans affairs and the legislative branch.
The Senate is working to pass a string of spending bills in July, including a vote next week on the fiscal 2019 bills funding the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development.
The Senate is planning another vote at the end of July, possibly pairing Health and Human Services spending with the Defense budget, said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
“I suggested that and we are talking about it,” Shelby said, when asked about combining the two measures. “If we could do this together in a bipartisan way we would cover a lot of ground.”
