To expedite the legislative process, House and Senate leaders are trying to combine three major bills, including a flood insurance bill, into a single package that both chambers can pass before Congress leaves for its July 4 recess.
“We are going to finish this before we leave,” Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday morning. “I hope we can do it today,” he added.
The package includes a highway transportation bill, a student loan bill and a five-year extension of the National Flood Insurance Program.
The Senate was expected to debate and consider amendments to the flood bill this week.
But Reid pulled the bill off the floor after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he would offer an abortion-related amendment that would define when life begins.
The majority leader made it at the beginning of the debate that he would only tolerate amendments related to flood insurance.
“We’ll either do flood insurance with amendments dealing with flood insurance or we won’t do it,” Reid said.
The Senate bill, like a House-passed bill, phases out subsidized insurance rates on second homes, commercial properties and properties subject to repeated flooding. The flood bills also require lenders to escrow flood insurance payments for properties located in flood zones.
The Senate bill requires homeowners located behind a levee or dam to purchase flood insurance for the first time. The House flood insurance does not.
Sens. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and John Hoeven, R-N.D., have co-sponsored an amendment to exempt homes located behind levees.
Pryor argued that Arkansas has the “best levees in the world.” It doesn’t make sense for his constituents to “pay for insurance they will never need,” he said.
Pryor claims 50 other senators supported the levee amendment.
Instead of voting on the issue, it appears the levee and other flood issues will be worked out behind closed doors.
