Flood risks call for housing safety
The National Wildlife Federation says climate change is making flooding far more likely and wants Congress to mandate that houses be built on safe terrain. Nancy Marshall Genzer has more on a flood insurance bill.
John Watson looks off the edge of his home where he has set up living quarters as the flooding Mississippi River surrounds his home in Foley, Mo. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
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Renita Jablonski: Lawmakers are already out for the Independence Day holiday, but congressional staffers are busy working to renew the National Flood Insurance Program before it expires in September. The National Wildlife Federation says climate change is making flooding far more likely. The group wants a requirement that houses be built out of harm's way. Marketplace's Nancy Marshall Genzer has more from Washington.
Nancy Marshall Genzer The premiums for federal flood insurance aren't enough to keep the program above water. It's now about $17 billion in the red. Critics want strict requirements about where and how people rebuild after a flood.
Gerald Galloway teaches engineering at the University of Maryland:
Gerald Galloway: It's foolish for the government to keep coming back year after year and bailing people out of something that we know is a risky area.
The National Wildlife Federation says that needs to change, because global warming will increase flooding.
NWF scientist David Conrad says Congress could require stilts on low-lying houses.
David Conrad: It may make sense to build higher or try not to build at all in places that are at significant risk.
Conrad says buildings in flood plains leave no place for flood waters to go. House and Senate negotiators hope to hammer out a final flood insurance bill by late July.
In Washington, I'm Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace.
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