Latest news with #WWNO
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Trump's 2-year reprieve gives coal plants ‘a free pass to pollute'
Published by WWNO, Grist. Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave this country's nearly 200 remaining coal-fired power plants until 2027 to install or improve air quality monitoring devices on smokestacks to meet federal guidelines to cut hazardous pollutants including mercury, arsenic, lead and particulate matter. But through executive action, President Donald Trump last month granted a two-year reprieve to some of those plants from the strengthened Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which required continuous monitoring of air pollutants. It is part of Trump's continuing efforts to boost fossil fuel use and undermine President Joe Biden's push to reduce threats from climate change and improve the health of people living in communities plagued by industrial pollution. The exemption applies to roughly one-third of all U.S. coal plants. These toxic and hazardous emissions have been tied to cancer, neurological damage and developmental disorders, 'even at extremely low levels of exposure,' said Margie Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, calling the two-year pause 'a free pass to pollute.' 'We're looking at a two-year extension as (a) step … to get rid of these mercury and particulate matter standards and get rid of the continuous emissions monitoring requirement altogether,' said Joseph Goffman, a former assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation under Biden. The extension, which was among the list of deregulatory actions announced by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, has drawn strong criticism from environmental groups, including those in Louisiana where three coal-powered plants still operate. Burning fossil fuels to generate electricity is one of the top contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. The state's largest electric provider, which owns one coal plant and shares ownership of a second — has said it already complies with the existing standards and plans to retire its coal-powered generation in the next five years. But advocates worry the shift in the country's regulatory landscape will worsen health risks for fenceline communities — and that promises to shutter coal plants could be reversed — as projected electrical demand continues to sharply rise. 'I think that it would be a mistake for us to rely on a corporation to do the right thing just because they want to,' said Emory Hopkins, organizer for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign in Louisiana. 'I think something that might be worth noting is that we're looking at a lot of load growth in the coming years, which is a lot more electric demand, energy demand,' primarily from data centers, Hopkins said. In his executive order, Trump said granting the two-year extension would safeguard the nation's power supply by not forcing electric companies to comply with 'unattainable' emissions standards. The EPA under Trump now says the enhanced MATS rule would cause 'regulatory uncertainty' for many U.S. coal plants. After Trump's action, the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal utility that generates power to seven states, announced it plans to walk back commitments to retire coal-powered plants by 2035. By the EPA's current estimates, the strengthened MATS rule would cost energy companies more than $790 million over 10 years. Trump's order stated that many coal-fired power plants were at risk of shutting down to meet the compliance standards, which would have led to significant job losses and weakened the country's electrical grid. In reality, coal-powered plants were already on the decline due to cheaper sources for electric power generation including natural gas, wind and solar — the latter two being the preferred option for greenhouse gas reduction. Goffman said the MATS rule changes were projected to reduce mercury emissions by 1,000 pounds. The World Health Organization has said even in small doses, mercury can cause serious health complications to a person's nervous, digestive and immune systems. Goffman added that the changes passed by the Biden administration last year incorporated advances in filtering out particulates, which were not available when the mercury rules were first enacted in 2012. The enhanced MATS rule would have reduced particulate matter by 770 tons, and carbon dioxide — a potent greenhouse gas — by 65,000 tons by 2028, resulting in millions of dollars in benefits to human health and the climate, he said. 'If there's one pollutant that you would worry about more than any other, when it comes to making people sick and killing them, it's fine particles,' he said. 'So within reason, the more you can cut fine particles, the better off everyone's health is going to be.' Biden's EPA also projected there would be little cost to electricity customers. The agency under Biden also said no coal-fired plants would be forced to shut down, and there would have been no major disruptions to energy production. 'I want to emphasize that these rules were not intended to prompt coal plants to shut down,' Goffman said. 'The Clean Air Act doesn't authorize EPA's regulations to do that, and the EPA certainly performed its analysis of the MATS requirements on the assumption that these plants would, and in many cases might need to, keep operating.' The Sierra Club, a nationwide grassroots environmental organization, noted in a 2020 report that coal-fired power plants in Louisiana accounted for just 8% of the state's electric power but were to blame for an estimated 51 deaths and 349 asthma attacks annually. The Roy S. Nelson, a coal-fired plant mostly owned by Entergy Louisiana in Lake Charles, has the largest number of people in the state living within a 12-mile radius — a population of about 153,000. Michael Tritico, a local environmental advocate who grew up in Lake Charles, said people there rarely oppose Entergy Louisiana, or any of the industrial facilities, despite the impacts to their health. 'The company always gets what it wants, and the neighbors never stand up,' he said. 'They figure industry is their bread and butter, so they let it go.' Brandon Scardigli, spokesman for Entergy Louisiana, said the company remains committed to ending its coal-generated power by the end of 2030. And as for its Nelson plant, he said it will continue to operate under the current MATS standards until then. 'This exemption does not change the applicable EPA standard for mercury emissions control, and Nelson 6 will continue to operate in compliance with this standard,' he said. 'We have continued to maintain and operate Nelson 6 in compliance with existing environmental regulations.' Joshua Smith, a senior attorney with the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program, said it will be important to press the company to keep those promises to an area already facing increased pollution. 'That Lake Charles area is already facing a pretty big buildout of liquified natural gas facilities and other types of industry,' Smith said. 'In general with these kinds of facilities, if they're given flexibility and latitude, they'll take it.' Smith added that the Sierra Club is exploring legal actions it can take to push back against the exemption, which could be extended beyond two years if Trump wants. 'I think it's a pretty destructive use of executive privilege,' he said. 'What's happening here is the (Trump administration) is allowing these facilities to pollute more at the very tail end of their life … (and) damaging the community that has already been bearing the brunt of the pollution for the better part of 40 or 50 years. 'It's just like one more kick in the teeth on the way out the door.' Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Fueling Knowledge: LSU's ties to oil and gas stretch back to the 1930s
An aerial photograph of LSU's campus circa 1938. (LSU Hill Memorial Library photo) This is part one of a two-part investigative series about the long-held relationship between the fossil fuel industry and LSU and was reported in partnership with WWNO, WRKF and Floodlight. You can listen to the accompanying Sea Change podcast here. To LSU administrators 55 years ago, the front yard of fraternity houses seemed like the 'least objectionable' location on campus to drill seven oil wells. That's according to the Oct. 2, 1970, minutes of the LSU Board of Supervisors' Oil and Gas Committee, which is now defunct. Seven months later, The Advocate reported a 'wildcat well' was drilled at the junction of Dalrymple and West Lakeshore drives. For decades stretching back to at least the 1930s, the committee's task was to decide where on university-owned land drilling would be done, what companies would get the leases and how to use the money the drilling brought to the university. The Illuminator has reviewed hundreds of pages of historical documents and interviewed historians and geographers to examine LSU's relationship with the fossil fuel industry. What started as a simple business transaction in the early 20th century — money for the mineral rights to university land — has grown over nearly a century into a full blown-partnership, with leading oil and gas companies donating tens of millions of dollars for research and other university priorities in the 21st century and getting influence over that research in return. The partnership of today, and where it will go in the future, will be explored in part two of this series. Throughout the decades it was active, the Oil and Gas Committee's membership included major players in the fossil fuel industry in Louisiana, including Patrick F. Taylor, a philanthropist responsible for the creation of the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or TOPS. A building bearing his name houses LSU's engineering school. Former Gov. John McKeithen, an attorney who managed an oil and gas company, also served on the committee after his two terms in office. Drilling took place on LSU's main campus, which is built on what's referred to on maps and in geological documents as the 'University Oil Field.' During the 20th century, dozens of wells drew oil from beneath the ground where students lived and studied and on land the LSU AgCenter maintained. Throughout hundreds of pages of meeting minutes, there was very little hesitation about drilling on this land. In one 1954 meeting, a proposal to drill under the Mississippi River raised objections from the dean of the Ag School and from the head of LSU's dairy department, but the committee unanimously moved forward with the drilling anyway. During a 1984 meeting, Helen Crawford, who later served as board chair, asked if the lease being debated 'would unduly deter people from wanting to do business with LSU.' In response, Ruth Miller, the first woman to serve on the Louisiana Mineral Board and the first woman to be chair of the LSU Board of Supervisors, pointed out that the discussion involved highly sensitive agricultural lands that LSU had a duty to 'preserve and protect.' But each time these concerns surfaced, documents show the discussion quickly moved on and no one objected to the numerous drilling proposals. Each year, reports show the university brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars from these drilling deals — a small but strong beginning to LSU's ongoing relationship with the fossil fuel industry. Throughout its history, LSU has looked to oil and gas to help fill its coffers. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX As the university grew, it sought funding beyond meager state appropriations. The money LSU brought in from its mineral leases was not enough, so in the 1950s its board created a private fundraising arm to solicit money from the oil and gas industry: the LSU Foundation. The LSU Foundation of today is something of a black hole. As a private nonprofit organization distinct from the university, it doesn't have to disclose its donors and is not required to provide any records related to its work to the public. Only an annual tax document provides some information on its spending. But in 1955, the LSU Board of Supervisors began holding public meetings to create the foundation, which was officially launched in 1960. Those meeting minutes — as well as its incorporating documents and minutes of early LSU Foundation board meetings — paint a picture of an organization created with oil and gas in mind. These records, and other documents reviewed for this report, are housed at LSU's Hill Memorial Library, which preserves documents related to the university's history. One document from a 1958 meeting has two columns filled with names and blank spaces, each representing a potential member of the board who would guide the LSU Foundation. Among the names were major oil and gas leaders such as Murphy J. Foster, a son of and father to Louisiana governors with whom he shared a name. Under each blank was typed the name of a company from which they sought to recruit a board member: – Shell, Cities Service (now Citgo), Conoco, Delta Tank, Gulf States Utilities and more — a sort of corporate funder wish list. Instead of hiring a foundation staff, the board mulled over borrowing an executive from the oil and gas industry to run the organization and using employees from their companies to do its administrative work. The industry-heavy board of the infant foundation looked to the oil and gas industry at every turn, according to archived records. For its first fundraising project, LSU Board chairman and former Democratic state Rep. Theo Cangelosi of Baton Rouge, who helped mold the foundation, suggested seeking donations for a theater from the petro-engineering industry. Plans for the building would include a mural celebrating oil and gas. While this particular dedication to industry didn't come to fruition, LSU's campus is littered with buildings, study rooms and other facilities named for petrochemical companies and industry leaders. The foundation's first 'Founding Company Member' — a title bestowed upon donors giving at least $10,000 — was Standard Oil, one of the first companies to discover oil in Louisiana. Today, it is known as ExxonMobil, a company LSU recognizes today as 'among the most generous corporate donors' to LSU. This industry money has been sought throughout LSU's history to fill the gap between state funding provided to the university and the resources needed to achieve university leadership's dreams. 'Legislative appropriations can be relied upon to furnish the bread and meat of a university's program, but the sauce, which represents the difference between the great and the mediocre institutions, will come from benefactors,' reads a 1955 report to the Board of Supervisors from the a committee looking into the value of creating a foundation. In the early 20th century, the goal was to make LSU 'the Harvard of the South' — an aspiration of former Gov. Huey Long. In 2025, the goal LSU President William Tate has set is to join the American Association of Universities, a prestigious group of the nation's top-tier research institutions. To achieve this lofty goal, LSU has to increase its research spending by tens of millions of dollars. Most of that spending will come from government grants, which university officials are urging professors to pursue more. But some will come from industry partners, such as those in the energy sector. 'It's time for a partnership in significant fashion to link the work at LSU in our energy areas, including alternative energy and creating ways to keep that industry vibrant here in this state and for our country,' Tate told reporters in 2022. 'Energy is our leading industry in this state. We must protect it,' Tate added. While critics disagree with LSU's role as a protector of industry, it is a key role the university has played for several decades. Amid the energy crisis of the 1980s, which had a significant impact on the state's oil-dependent budget, lawmakers created the Center for Energy Studies at LSU. Though the center is independent of the legislature, its work was intended to inform policy decisions. Part of its early mission was to study ways to keep pulling as much oil and gas from the ground as possible. After this decades-long partnership, many students and faculty think it's time for a change. Students are calling for LSU to divest the foundation's endowment from the fossil fuel industry and researchers are sounding the alarm that universities intertwined with the oil and gas industry risk their credibility. Despite this warning, LSU is bringing in more oil and gas money than ever before. Part two of this investigation will explore what that money is costing the university. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New York doctor is indicted in Louisiana for providing abortion pill online to a minor in deep-red state
A New York doctor has been indicted in Louisiana for allegedly providing abortion medication to a minor online and sending it in the mail, prosecutors said. On Friday a grand jury indicted Dr. Margaret Carpenter, her company Nightingale Medical, and a Louisiana mother, who has not been named, in the first case of its kind since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Louisiana has one of the strictest near-total abortion bans in the country. Carpenter and the mother have been charged with causing an abortion 'by means of delivering, dispensing, distributing, or providing' a pregnant woman with an 'abortion-inducting drug.' The case is being prosecuted by West Baton Rouge Assistant District Attorney Tony Clayton, who accused Carpenter of 'pushing that poison' from New York to Louisiana, WWNO reported. Clayton asserts that the mother allegedly purchased the pills from Carpenter and gave them to the minor. He did not disclose her age but confirmed she was under 18. 'No matter what your position is on abortions, you cannot put a pill in commerce and ship it down to Louisiana. The state has voted that abortions are illegal, so you can't hide behind the borders of New York and ship pills down here to commit abortions in Louisiana,' Clayton said in an interview with Talk Louisiana. 'It's pushing that poison, that drug, down here and you're aiding and abetting extended abortion. Don't ship it to Louisiana. If it's legal in New York, keep it up there.' Clayton said that the minor 'felt that she had to take the pill because what her mother told her' and was home alone at the time. He said that the minor would not be prosecuted. New York has a shield law that protects medical providers from out-of-state legal action by refusing to order a defendant to comply with extradition, arrest, and legal proceedings in other states. The state's shield law also gives prescribers who are sued the ability to countersue to recover damages. Louisiana became the first state with a law to reclassify both mifepristone and misoprostol as 'controlled dangerous substances.' The drugs, which have other critical reproductive health care purposes, are still allowed in the state but medical personnel have to go through extra steps to access them. In December 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also filed a lawsuit against a Carpenter, alleging the doctor prescribed abortion medication to a woman in Texas. Carpenter is one of the founders of the Abortion Coalition of Telemedicine, which has warned of a 'disturbing pattern of interference with women's rights' since Roe v Wade was overturned. 'It's no secret the United States has a history of violence and harassment against abortion providers, and this state-sponsored effort to prosecute a doctor providing safe and effective care should alarm everyone.' The Associated Press contributed reporting
The Independent
31-01-2025
- Health
- The Independent
New York doctor is indicted in Louisiana for providing abortion pill online to a minor in deep-red state
A New York doctor has been indicted in Louisiana for allegedly providing abortion medication to a minor online and sending it in the mail, prosecutors said. On Friday a grand jury indicted Dr. Margaret Carpenter, her company Nightingale Medical, and a Louisiana mother, who has not been named, in the first case of its kind since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Louisiana has one of the strictest near-total abortion bans in the country. Carpenter and the mother have been charged with causing an abortion 'by means of delivering, dispensing, distributing, or providing' a pregnant woman with an 'abortion-inducting drug.' The case is being prosecuted by West Baton Rouge Assistant District Attorney Tony Clayton, who accused Carpenter of 'pushing that poison' from New York to Louisiana, WWNO reported. Clayton asserts that the mother allegedly purchased the pills from Carpenter and gave them to the minor. He did not disclose her age but confirmed she was under 18. 'No matter what your position is on abortions, you cannot put a pill in commerce and ship it down to Louisiana. The state has voted that abortions are illegal, so you can't hide behind the borders of New York and ship pills down here to commit abortions in Louisiana,' Clayton said in an interview with Talk Louisiana. 'It's pushing that poison, that drug, down here and you're aiding and abetting extended abortion. Don't ship it to Louisiana. If it's legal in New York, keep it up there.' Clayton said that the minor 'felt that she had to take the pill because what her mother told her' and was home alone at the time. He said that the minor would not be prosecuted. New York has a shield law that protects medical providers from out-of-state legal action by refusing to order a defendant to comply with extradition, arrest, and legal proceedings in other states. The state's shield law also gives prescribers who are sued the ability to countersue to recover damages. Louisiana became the first state with a law to reclassify both mifepristone and misoprostol as 'controlled dangerous substances.' The drugs, which have other critical reproductive health care purposes, are still allowed in the state but medical personnel have to go through extra steps to access them. In December 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also filed a lawsuit against a Carpenter, alleging the doctor prescribed abortion medication to a woman in Texas. Carpenter is one of the founders of the Abortion Coalition of Telemedicine, which has warned of a 'disturbing pattern of interference with women's rights' since Roe v Wade was overturned. 'It's no secret the United States has a history of violence and harassment against abortion providers, and this state-sponsored effort to prosecute a doctor providing safe and effective care should alarm everyone.'
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Insurance reform worsens affordability in flood-prone Louisiana
The Plaquemines Parish community of Ironton, along the west bank of the Mississippi River south of New Orleans, flooded heavily during Hurricane Ida in 2021. (Halle Parker/WWNO) Flood insurance is a tenet of life in water-burdened Louisiana. The low-lying portions of the state face rising water from the disappearing coast and more frequent heavy rainfall from hurricanes and seasonal storms that outpace the ability of local drainage systems to clear flooding. But skyrocketing costs of National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) coverage are spurring significant departure from the program, with about 70,000 policies dropped in Louisiana from 2022 to 2024. When paired with the ongoing home insurance crisis in Louisiana, this raises premium costs even more. Many are dropping insurance, contributing to an endless cycle of higher payments for those who need to maintain flood insurance or want to mitigate the risk of facing rising floodwaters. Theryn Henkel, a former resident of the Gentilly neighborhood in New Orleans, knows the risks of flooding better than most. She lived in Louisiana for 18 years and worked as a scientist with the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. Henkel bought a new café-au-lait-colored shotgun-style house and painted the door bright green. The house is elevated, the base raised about 3 feet off the ground with red brick to account for frequent flooding. Henkel purchased flood insurance just to be safe. 'I'm very into the coastal restoration realm and know the risks,' she said, 'so it was almost immoral for me to not have flood insurance, you know … I think it was very important to have it.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Her house wasn't technically in a high-risk area, and flood insurance was affordable – at about $400 a year. 'That was a cost that I was really willing to eat,' she said, even with regular home insurance in the state rising to $700 more than the national average. By 2022, her premium had crept up to $650. By 2023, Henkel left Louisiana, saying spiking insurance costs contributed to her decision to leave for a new job in Olympia, Washington. She said she would have dropped her flood coverage had she decided to stay. Created by Congress in 1968 in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy, which devastated New Orleans, the NFIP acts as a last-resort for insurance coverage in areas deemed too risky by the private insurance market, pooling flood risk across a larger population to make prices more affordable. The equation was simple; the more flood-prone a property, the higher the premium, based on flood maps and how high up a structure was relative to base elevation. But the NFIP has been in debt for nearly two decades, even after Congress forgave $16 billion worth in 2017. Lawmakers lobbied for reform, and first instituted Risk Rating 2.0 in late 2021 and throughout 2022. The new rate-calculation system aims to make the program more financially solvent and more accurate, with premiums reflecting actual risk: A property's proximity to flood threats and a home's construction style are factored in when pricing premiums. 'A lot of areas that are underwritten by the National Flood Insurance Program, that are in flood prone areas, and that are repetitive loss, are losing money and draining a lot of the resources,' said Jeff Schlegelmilch, Columbia University associate professor and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Columbia Climate School. He said that while Risk Rating 2.0 better addresses risk than previous FEMA tools, in an attempt to make the program more equitable, it's made coastal communities less affordable. 'Raising rates to reflect actual risk puts you in a situation where you're pricing people out of their homes, which has very devastating consequences for individuals and communities,' said Schlegelmilch. Rising premiums have forced some to abandon flood insurance entirely, increasing risks and pushing costs higher for those who remain in the program. Marguerite Oestreicher, director of Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans, describes the struggle for homeowners already struggling financially. 'It's not that people want to be uninsured. It's just, you know, the math just doesn't work, and you don't have enough cash to cover basic needs,' Oestreicher said. 'It's groceries, it's health care, power bills … we are seeing people do without because of insurance.' Louisiana's waterlogged history makes it number one in the nation for repeat flooding for properties covered under the NFIP. According to data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Natural Resource Defense Council, just over 43,000 properties have filed multiple flood insurance claims over the past 10 years. Jefferson and Orleans parishes have the most NFIP repeat flood claims in Louisiana, with about 40% of the state's total over the past 10 years. With aging infrastructure and low-lying areas prone to hurricane damage, both parishes often flood. The key to curbing flood disasters is prevention, said Michael Hecht, CEO of the regional economic development nonprofit group Greater New Orleans Inc. 'The long-term solution is mitigation, both individual mitigation at the structure level and community mitigation, up to and including federal levees,' Hecht said. Mitigation — raising homes, improving drainage or constructing levees — can break the cycle of flooding. But the process of elevating a home, one of the most popular mitigation strategies, can be expensive and difficult. Only 22% of the over 43,000 properties in Louisiana that have filed at least two NFIP damage claims have reduced their risk of flooding by raising their structures. In Orleans Parish, which includes New Orleans, 82% of the 8,568 properties with NFIP repeat flooding claims have never had flood prevention updates. Climate adaptation is very central to our insurance crisis. Every year is going to be riskier than the last … and insurers are well aware of that. – Caroline Kousky, Insurance for Good Most people want to protect their homes from flooding, but affordability can make the path to home protection hard to navigate. FEMA offers various types of grants for repeatedly flooded properties, but these grants often require years to secure. Additionally, property owners must maintain current flood insurance policies to qualify, a challenge, given soaring premiums. 'With Risk Rating 2.0, our main concern with it right now is that it does not reliably incentivize mitigation,' said Peter Waggonner, public policy director for GNO Inc. 'Households or communities are saying 'well, we're doing this work in risk reduction, and we're not seeing a change in the insurance market,'' said Carolyn Kousky, founder of the nonprofit advocacy group Insurance for Good. She said despite individual mitigations like home elevations qualifying people for discounts, the models used for assessing risk under Risk Rating 2.0 aren't accounting for efforts to mitigate flood risk in a timely enough way at a community level to reliably incentivize mitigation. 'Sometimes the best approaches for managing flood risk are community based approaches' like levees and wetland restoration, Kousky said. The NFIP allows for communities to earn points on their Community Rating System, but Kousky identified a 'gap' in making sure new flood models target rate reduction to individual property owners rather than to a whole community. 'We are not seeing [Risk Rating 2.0] account for that in a timely way right now,' she said. Lack of transparency as to how Risk Rating 2.0 evaluates risk stands at the center of Louisiana's flood insurance crisis. St. Charles Parish sued FEMA in 2023 over the agency's failure to provide information on how flood risk was assessed for homes with increasing premiums. FEMA responded to the suit, saying the data used was proprietary information purchased from a private company. 'There's an utter lack of transparency [and] the affordability guidelines or guardrails are not in there right now,' Waggonner said. 'You do risk pricing working-class or people on a fixed income out of their home over time.' In congressional hearings, Hecht has criticized the program and demanded reform, calling NFIP 'unaffordable, inaccurate, and contradictory to the environmental and economic wellbeing of our country.' He said 'flood insurance is a slow moving glacier of destruction of real estate value' for New Orleans and other flood prone areas of Louisiana. Louisiana lawmakers also continue to push for solutions. Sen. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge, who leads his chamber's insurance committee, has said Risk Rating 2.0 is 'screwed up' and is working to coordinate national efforts to address insurance affordability. But Rep. Tim Kerner Sr., R-Lafitte, still thinks the mitigation projects are worth the investment, despite the high cost of flood insurance. His waterfront town, even though it's surrounded by a 'ring' levee, routinely floods during most storms. 'People continue to suffer,' Kerner said. 'We've got to protect the people, help them with mitigation, help them get their houses raised … I'm hoping we have a special session to tackle these issues.' Kousky said in order to facilitate systemic solutions, there need to be more tools to lower flood risk and consideration for what it means 'to live in a high risk area' like Southeast Louisiana. FEMA recently introduced a customer support tool to help address some of the transparency problems with risk assessment, hoping to share rate calculations directly with individuals who then seek out an insurance agent and make coverage more affordable. But the tool doesn't allow people to check beforehand what discounts they could get for elevating a home before getting flood insurance, said Waggonner, 'so there still is not that communication and transparency in terms of what I would get if I were to flood proof or make some upfront investment into my property.' Some proposed solutions meant to address the affordability issue with the NFIP include means-based assistance programs or offering monthly installment payments instead of discounting premiums. A Government Accountability Office report from 2023 suggested a similar approach, recommending that Congress work to start 'replacing discounted premiums with a means-based assistance program that is reflected in the federal budget.' Kousky reiterated that, along with addressing pricing equity in flood insurance, officials also need to be talking about climate change. 'Climate adaptation is very central to our insurance crisis,' Kousky said. 'Every year is going to be riskier than the last … and insurers are well aware of that.' She emphasised how a warming climate and the insurance crisis are inextricably linked and, while building resilience into communities with mitigation measures and careful development is hard, 'we can't solve the current insurance crisis without much more substantial, serious attention to what it means to build and live in a higher risk area.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
