Rubio says he'll vote to delay flood insurance hikes

• Helping delay rate increases benefits Rubio in Florida but could hurt him nationally
• Increases pose serious financial problems for many homeowners
• Legislation would delay rate hikes for four years

WASHINGTON — Sen. Marco Rubio said Thursday he'll support a bipartisan bill that would delay dramatic increases in federal flood insurance rates, despite misgivings about the program's long-term sustainability.

The Florida Republican adds an important conservative voice to an initiative that could reach the Senate floor by next week. The Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act would provide temporary relief to millions of property owners nationwide, including hundreds of thousands in Florida.

"I'll vote for this bill and I'll support it because it's important to prevent these rate increases from going forward," Rubio told reporters. "But I would like to find some long-term certainty to this."

The issue is a thorny one for the potential 2016 presidential contender who rode Tea Party support to the Senate in 2010.

He wants to back an effort that directly helps his Florida constituents. But supporting a measure that would continue, at least for the short term, a bailout by taxpayers might not sit well with conservatives who will be instrumental in picking the party's next nominee for the White House.

Rubio joins Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida in backing a delay that's been particularly painful to the Sunshine State.

Some homeowners have seen their insurance bills jump tenfold. And some real estate transactions have been scuttled because coverage is suddenly unaffordable.

"What we're seeing is a very fragile recovery in the real estate market begin to complete dissipate because folks are finding out about this at the moment they're going to sign. Deals are just dying," said Christine Ross, president of the Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce who came to Washington this week to press lawmakers to delay the rate hikes.

The rate increases were created under the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. They were intended to help make the government's flood insurance program financially solvent by bringing rates in line with true flooding risks.

Biggert-Waters imposes 25% rate hikes on some but not all properties that have received premium subsidies through the National Flood Insurance Program. The program, run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has traditionally charged premiums at about 40% to 45% of their full cost, with taxpayers subsidizing the rest.

The Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act, proposed by Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., would delay premium increases for about four years from the date of passage until FEMA completes an affordability study. It would apply retroactively to rate hikes that took effect Oct. 1.

Similar legislation has been introduced in the House.

Opponents of the measure point to a recent Congressional Budget Office analysis that delaying the rate hikes would cause the program to lose $2.1 billion over 10 years.

Those losses will cut into the program's bottom line and could force it to bump up against its borrowing cap of $30.4 billion, said Steve Ellis, vice president of the nonpartisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

"Basically, this bill will make the flood insurance program operate on a hand-it-out-when-needed basis," he said.

Rubio believes those concerns should be addressed and prefers that any legislation to delay the increases include comprehensive changes to the program. For example, he said, Florida property owners pay more into the program than they receive.

"What we're trying to figure out here is how can we prevent these disruptive (rate hikes) but also put in place a mechanism that allows us to begin to deal with the long-term health of this necessary program," he said.

Nelson said the paramount concern is freezing the rates before they cause irreversible damage.

"It happens to be a matter of fairness," he said. "It's not fair that people are suddenly having to pay 10 times what they were just paying."

Contributing: Deborah Barfield Berry and Malia Rulon Herman, Gannett Washington Bureau