TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — Florida is fighting the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) over the agency’s newly introduced “equity” approach to flood insurance.
Attorney General Ashley Moody joined nine other states to push back on the Biden administration’s new policy that Moody says uses an “unlawful methodology” to determine flood insurance premiums.
“While Florida works to reduce the burden of rising insurance costs, Washington is making premiums skyrocket by basing flood insurance policy on a social and ideological agenda,” House Speaker Paul Renner told The Florida Standard.
According to the complaint, “FEMA has adopted a new methodology for calculating flood insurance rates under which most NFIP policyholder’s premiums are dramatically increasing, in some areas by an average of 1000%.”
“INAPPROPRIATE FACTORS”
FEMA’s Equity in Action plan collects data – including information on sexual orientation and gender identity – in order to “analyze intended and actual accessibility” when making decisions to provide grants and issue flood insurance.
AG Moody and the other plaintiffs point out that the FEMA plan’s calculations are flawed in a multitude of ways:
“It considered the inappropriate factor of future climate change, which does not relate to the risk a property actually faces today. Equity in Action uses catastrophe modeling, which takes into account future hypothetical events, including hypothetical events resulting from climate change,” the filing states, adding:
“It also considered the inappropriate factor of how its program would advance an unrelated identity-politics agenda. It “integrat[ed]” into its approach to flood insurance factors like race, ethnicity, religion, income, geography, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability when issuing rules and guidance.”
ROOTED IN MARXISM
“Equity” is a concept rooted in Marxism and means that the state takes the role of driving equal outcomes for citizens based on which “group” the government determines they belong to. Opponents of such “woke” policies argue that they erode the long-standing principle of equal treatment of people as individuals.
Over merely a few years, the U.S. federal bureaucracy has produced a massive repository of regulations and guidelines filled to the brim with socialist newspeak, such as the Equity in Action plan.
“Only a powerful central government could impose the intensive – and expensive – programs of social intervention, ideological re-education and economic redistribution,” Charles Lipson, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Chicago wrote in The Wall Street Journal regarding the Biden administration’s push for “equity.”
“Isn’t equity just a new brand name for the oldest program of achieving equal outcomes? Its name is socialism,” Dr. Lipson summarized.
UNLAWFUL METHODOLOGY
“Bureaucrats in Washington have no business using race, sexual orientation, so-called gender ideology and color of anyone’s skin to determine flood insurance rates,” Speaker Paul Renner said. “I commend Attorney General Moody for joining the fight against Joe Biden pushing an unlawful methodology that will hurt Florida families.”
The methodology used by FEMA is “deeply unjust” and “defies both law and logic,” the nine attorneys general state in the complaint.
Plus, it is illegal under The Flood Disaster Protection Act of 1973 – makes flood insurance unattainable for many policyholders by raising rates despite congressional mandates that the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) provide consumers with affordable coverage.
“Insurance premiums are on the rise,” Moody told The Florida Standard. “Now, under President Biden, FEMA is taking action that will make flood insurance rates rise even further. That is why I am fighting back against the Biden administration to lower flood insurance rates for the Floridians who depend on this coverage.”
In Florida, 76 percent of the population lives in coastal areas and flood zones that require flood insurance – which can only be purchased through NFIP. More than 80 percent of flood insurance policy premiums will now increase significantly due to FEMA’s Equity in Action methodology.
“While the agency paints a picture of nuanced calculations using massive data repositories that reveal a property’s individualized risks, the reality is much simpler: Flood insurance is going to be more expensive. Under Risk Rating 2.0 – Equity in Action […] the agency ignores historical observed flood events in favor of future flood hypotheticals to determine the present flood risk of each insured property,” the complaint further states.
Florida joined Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia in the legal action.
Read the full complaint here and Florida’s declaration here.
