Growing Agreement that Taxpayers Shouldn’t Subsidize Risky Coastal Development

From today’s New York Times:

Insurance companies got out of the business of writing flood insurance decades ago, so much of the risk from sea level rise is expected to fall on the financially troubled National Flood Insurance Program, set up by Congress, or on state insurance pools. Federal taxpayers also heavily subsidize coastal development when the government pays to rebuild infrastructure destroyed in storm surges and picks up much of the bill for private losses not covered by insurance.

For decades, coastal scientists have argued that these policies are foolhardy, and that the nation must begin planning an orderly retreat from large portions of its coasts, but few politicians have been willing to embrace that message or to warn the public of the rising risks.

Organizations like Mr. Ebell’s, [the Competitive Enterprise Institute] even as they express skepticism about climate science, have sided with the coastal researchers on one issue. They argue that Congress should stop subsidizing coastal development, regarding it as a waste of taxpayers’ money regardless of what the ocean might do in the future.

“If people want to build an expensive beach house on the Florida or Carolina coast, they should take their own risk and pay for their own insurance,” Mr. Ebell said.

That’s big: when people from all political stripes agree that something should change, it just might.

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