If a New Yorker gets it, why can't an Alabamian?

Editorial
October 4, 2007

As expected, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, Mississippi's two Republican senators, voiced support this week for Coast Congressman Gene Taylor's effort to expand the National Flood Insurance Program to include damage done by wind as well as water.

Taylor's proposed legislation passed the House of Representatives last week and is now drawing the attention of the Senate.

As hoped, a senator from another coastal state applauded the House plan to expand the federal insurance program. "I believe we should do the same in the Senate, and will work toward that," said Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, a senior member of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue.

But not all the news is positive.

The Bush administration is still trumpeting the possibility of a presidential veto of a multiperil plan.

And next door in Alabama, Sen. Richard Shelby has declared himself a foe of the proposal. As a fellow Republican who also represents a regular route for hurricanes, perhaps Shelby can be persuaded by Cochran and Lott.

We hope so. And sooner rather than later.

As Schumer appreciates, the private sector is abandoning property owners in coastal areas while objecting to the public sector filling the gap.

"You can't have it both ways," Schumer says.

So he is trying to help homeowners on Long Island in New York and in Long Beach in Mississippi.

He deserves a lot more support.


Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home