Cochran and Pryor are raising the issue fully aware that the Senate is working under the pressure of another temporary extension of the NFIP, now slated to sunset Nov. 18.

The Senate must pass a bill, then reconcile its version with a somewhat different House bill, H.R. 1309, the Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2011 before that date.

Matt Gannon, assistant vice president of federal affairs for the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, voices sympathy for the concerns of Cochran and Pryor, but adds that the Senate bill's Technical Mapping Advisory Council was established to address this very type of issue. 

"These communities could be deemed exempt by the map council or have the lowest premiums required by the NFIP due to their robust mitigation efforts," Gannon says.

Gannon also says "it is doubtful" that flood-insurance premiums would reach a level to slow economic development behind strong, well maintained levees, dams or other flood-control structures.

But Cochran and Pryor say they are asking their colleagues to join them in signing a bipartisan letter to the banking panel asking for reconsideration of Sec. 107.

This provision would expand required insurance coverage to "areas of residual risk" that are located behind levees, near dams or other flood-control structures.

"The NFIP must be reformed, and I believe the Senate Banking Committee has done yeoman's work on crafting bipartisan reform legislation," Cochran says.

But he says Sec. 107 creates new flood insurance coverage mandates on families and businesses that are already protected by strong levees and dams.

"The blanket approach taken in the current bill should be changed in order to ensure fair treatment for those protected properties," Cochran says.