During the past eight years south Louisiana has been devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Isaac but as evidenced by its recovery residents have authored a remarkable story of courage and resiliency.
Now, as it turns out, the biggest threat to a region so rich and culture is not Mother Nature but rather a Pennsylvania congressman blowing his own misguided winds of self-indulgence.
Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, recently used a procedural move to block Sen. Mary Landrieu’s amendment to delay dramatic premium increases in the National Flood Insurance Program.
Landrieu had added her amendment to Sen. David Vitter’s water resources infrastructure bill. Vitter supported Landrieu’s attempt, but the amendment was ultimately pulled because of the insidious actions of the narcissistic Toomey who raised the ire of every resident of the Gulf Coast when he said he did not want to continue to what he called “unfair” subsidies to homeowners living in risky areas.
Toomey even had the gall to play the morality card, saying Landrieu’s amendment would have created a “moral risk” of encouraging residents to continue returning home, a place where some of their ancestors settled hundreds of years ago.
Toomey’s diatribe is disingenuous but represents a sentiment alarmingly shared by some of his fellow congressmen. In fact, that predilection was the genesis of the 2012 legislation, authored by Congress members from California and Illinois that initially raised the flood rates.
But as we learned in 2012 hurricanes can strike as far north as New York and New England, yet no one dare speak despairingly of those regions.
Conveniently forgotten in the conversation is that Katrina’s damaging floodwaters were the result of the incompetent bureaucratic morass known as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and not the result of Mother Nature. And for that, an entire region will suffer.
Make no mistake, the proposed insurance increases, if enacted, would make ghost towns of south Louisiana communities. One Plaquemines Parish resident noted that his annual premium, which has been approximately $500, would increase to in excess of $20,000. This type of increase is unsustainable and would assure that Interstate 12 in St. Tammany Parish and subsequently Interstate 10 to the west would become the state’s southernmost boundary.
Last week Landrieu introduced a standalone bill that would delay the implementation of those increases to give Congress the opportunity to study the impact, but it is likely to be met with opposition. Maybe Toomey will have the decency to play hooky the day of the vote and allow a region to preserve its way of life.