Members
of the Kanawha County Commission are relieved that a potential
skyrocketing of flood insurance rates in the county as well as across West Virginia
“This
is very serious and we are glad that they’ve looked at it,” said Kanawha County
Commission President Kent Carper.
Lawmakers
on Capitol Hill Monday reached a bipartisan deal to delay the
implementation of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act for four years.
Congress
had passed the act last year in an effort to stabilize the National
Flood Insurance Program, which is drowning in debt to the tune of $25
billion.
The
law would do away with flood insurance subsidies, but an unintended consequence
to that was the price for homeowners’ flood insurance policies going
through the roof.
The
new legislation passed Monday calls for a four-year delay in most rate
increases and requires FEMA to complete an affordability study and propose
regulations that address affordability issues.
If a
delay was not enacted, not only West Virginians ,
but thousands of people across the country would have seen substantial
increases in their flood insurance rates.
