Democrats Flood Orange County With New Taxes

Thousands of residents of Central Orange County will be treated to mandatory flood insurance premiums (i.e. taxes) thanks to a Democrat-sponsored bill to "save" the flood control insurance program:

Thousands of property owners throughout Southern California would be forced to buy flood insurance under a bill to resuscitate the debt-ridden national flood insurance program.

If signed into law, HR 3121 would require homeowners living in areas protected by dams, levees and man-made structures to buy insurance from the national program, even if the risk is minimal.

Some Orange County homeowners, primarily in Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley, are already required to buy flood insurance because of poor drainage or federally backed mortgages. But the bill would expand the mandatory insurance area to most of north Orange County, including the entire cities of Garden Grove, Fountain Valley and Westminster.

Different versions of the bill were approved by both houses of Congress and are now before a conference committee, which is expected to hammer out a final version by late September. The Senate added the provision that more homes be mandated to buy flood insurance.

Under that plan, property owners throughout North Orange County would have to pay flood insurance premiums ranging from roughly $150 to $800 per year, although the flooding risk in some of those areas is as little as .2 percent in any given year.

The actual insurance rates and zone boundaries have not yet been set by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Register, with the aid of Orange County Public Works officials, used federal flood plains maps to decipher where the boundaries might be.

"This is catastrophic," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, who voted against the bill. "This is liberal Democrats grasping to put more money into the pot. We shouldn't be punishing California for a weakness in the levees in Louisiana."

Added Guy Carrozzo, Fountain Valley mayor pro tem: "Our city is getting shafted."

It is true that if the Prado Dam were to collapse during a record storm year there could be significant flooding downstream along the Santa Ana River, but that's a pretty slim possibility. Most of the year there's little or no water in the river below the dam, and only a modest amount above it. We don't have the type of climate here that could result in the kinds of flooding that has been seen in the midwest this month, or as happened following Katrina.

This is just a money grab by the Dems at the expense of homeowners.