Mr. President, last week I came to the floor and urged all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together in a commonsense, bipartisan way and extend for a significant period of time…
Mr. President, last week I came to the floor and urged all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together in a commonsense, bipartisan way and extend for a significant period of time the very important National Flood Insurance Program. That program, which is essential to the country, involves a lot of properties essential to real estate closings, to allow that important part of our economy to happen as we struggle to get out of this recession. That program would otherwise expire 1 week from this Friday.
I also wrote Senator Reid that same day, as I came to the floor, urging him to support this legislation, extending this vital program, to be passed quickly, hopefully unanimously, through the Senate.
The good news is that I have reached out to many folks--Democrats and Republicans--since then, and we have continued to build consensus to do that, to make sure there is no threat of the National Flood Insurance Program lapsing yet again, as it did, unfortunately, four times in 2010--no good reason--for a total of 53 days. Every time that happens or is even threatened to happen, within a few days there is great chaos and uncertainty in the real estate market. Good closings are put off. Our economy slows down for no good reason, as we need every closing in sight to do exactly the opposite and to improve the economy. Again, the good news is that we have built consensus, and I think we have reached consensus to avoid that sort of lapse. So I return to the floor today to get that formally done.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1958, my bill, to extend the National Flood Insurance Program well into next year, to May 31, which I introduced earlier today.
Mr. President, I know of no further debate on this measure. I will have a few closing comments after we formally pass it, but I urge its passage.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and any statements be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, in closing, I thank everyone, on both sides of the aisle, who worked in a very commonsense way to get this done. Again, sort of the worst case scenario is what we all experienced in 2010. Four different times in 2010 the program actually lapsed, a total of 53 days. More times than that it came within a few days of lapsing and created great uncertainty in the real estate market.
We do not need any of that. We have been trying to struggle out of a recession and a very bad economy which has been led by a real estate downturn. We need every good closing we can get. Giving the market this certainty over a week before it would otherwise expire is very good as we try to create that certainty and build a better economic climate.
I am happy we came together in a commonsense bipartisan way to extend the National Flood Insurance Program, as is, to May 31. Let me also say in closing I strongly support a full 6-year reauthorization of the program. I have worked on that bill with many others in the relevant Senate committee, the Senate Banking Committee. We have reported a good bill out of committee. I want to get that to the Senate floor and merge it and compromise it in some reasonable way with the House reauthorization.
We need a full-blown 6-year reauthorization of the program with significant reforms. That was obviously not going to happen between now and a week from Friday. It is obviously not going to happen a month or two into the new year. So we needed to create the certainty this extension will create as we continue to work on that full reauthorization.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
