During the debate on a House vote on an amendment that would delay the rate increases for at least a year, Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who is running for the Senate seat held by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said, “The potentially crippling impact to homeowners across the country should be corrected, and this amendment is the first step in accomplishing this.

“We all understand the need to reform a broken program, but not at the cost of families losing their homes and banks going into default,” he said.

The vote on the amendment was overwhelming, 281-146.

An industry lobbyist who has dealt with NFIP issues for several years saw a cruel irony in the amendment. “As I recall, Biggert-Waters got 407 votes when it passed the House. So, in effect, nearly three-quarters of the members who voted for it less than a year ago are now ready to abandon the premium increases that they were touting as 'urgently needed' at the time.”

A FEMA advisory to Write Your Own companies noted that flood-insurance policies protecting properties in very high risk coastal areas could see premiums in excess of $20,000 “in rare cases.”

But after a meeting earlier this month with FEMA officials, residents of two Louisiana counties were told that Louisiana parishes will be among the first to see local levees included in the redrawing of flood maps.

This stems from another provision of the 2012 law, which mandates that NFIP customers who live behind levees will be legally exempt from paying NFIP premiums if they are required by mortgage holders.

“Inclusion of levees and other flood-protection systems could save homeowners in low-lying areas thousands of dollars as FEMA continues its overhaul of the National Flood Insurance Program and flood maps used to determine flood insurance rates,” a local periodical says in writing about the FEMA meeting.

In other words, the number of NFIP customers impacted by the rate hikes will likely be minimal. And these ratepayers will be people who have had rates grandfathered going back as far as 1969, when flood maps were first authorized.

Others impacted will be people in zones where there is high risk of flooding, and for businesses and owners of second homes whose rates have been subsidized, some for many years.

Still, despite the limited impact, citizens and legislators maintain their objections.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.— ranking minority member of the House Financial Services Committee, and a named sponsor of the 2012 legislation that reformed the NFIP—was among the supporters of the amendment to delay rate increases.

Commenting on the righteous indignation voiced by Waters and others that reflects on the current dysfunctional Congress, an anonymous FEMA official who has intimate knowledge of the NFIP observed:

“It is interesting that Maxine Waters is part of this effort. What she's saying is, 'Whoops, we didn't know what the hell we were doing with B-W.

“Let's try this again. Let's make sure we don't talk to anybody who knows how the program works, though, because we're liable to get it right this time. Then what are we going to do?”

The source added, “I don't mind them kicking us around. I just wish they knew why they were doing it.”

At the time the bill was passed, all members of the Louisiana delegation supported it.

However, when the legislation passed, members of the Louisiana delegation—and the Mississippi delegation, which is also up in arms—were not paying any attention to the Biggert-Waters bill.

They were paying much more attention to another provision that, like the Biggert-Waters legislation, was attached to the larger transportation bill under consideration: “The Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourism Opportunities and Revived Economy of the Gulf Coast Act.”

That provision, engineered by Landrieu, mandates that 80 percent of the fines that British Petroleum is forced to pay because of the 2010 drilling rig explosion and subsequent oil spill should be sent to Gulf Coast states to use.

Until Friday, it was difficult to calculate the potential value of the Restore Act to the Gulf states, predominately Louisiana and Mississippi. However a New York Times story—where BP aired its concerns that it was being taken to the cleaners on claims for damages by Gulf Coast businesses and individuals harmed by the 2010 disaster—indicates BP could face as much as $14 billion in penalties depending on how much oil flooded into the Gulf and how much blame is apportioned to BP and the contractors.

That means that the Gulf states could gain as much as $11.2 billion to use as their politicians please.

This, after the U.S. government spent more than $200 billion to pay for damages, as well as building appropriate levees, in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.