The impact of newer, actuarially sound National Flood Insurance Program rates will mostly be felt by lower- and moderate-income homeowners, and the new rates will not pay off the program's debts, a FEMA official said today.

In a wide-ranging briefing on the Biggert-Waters Act—the law that extended the NFIP for five years—Edward Connor, deputy associate administrator for the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration, the FEMA sub-agency that manages the NFIP, estimated that only 1.1 million of the 5.5 million homes in the NFIP will be affected by the phase-out of subsidized rates over four years mandated by the new law.

But while he contends that the new rates will not provide enough money to pay off the NFIP's debt, he says it will provide greater stability to the program.