Homeowners, which of these consumes more energy in your house: space heating or water heating? Either way, Uncle Sam is ready to help you pay for some energy-efficient upgrades.
The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Biden a year ago, created two energy-efficiency rebate programs that could pay some, or even all, of the costs of buying Energy Star-rated appliances, adding insulation or otherwise making your home more efficient.
The rub: States will administer the programs, and each one must apply for its share of the $8.8 billion in federal funds earmarked for the rebates. And some states may opt out.
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One state has already indicated it probably won’t participate. Lawmakers in Tallahassee voted to apply for Florida’s allocation — which, at roughly $346 million, is the third-largest in the country, behind California and Texas. But Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed the measure as “woke.” The DoE has not been officially notified, so DeSantis could still change his mind.
Unsurprisingly, it’s kinda difficult to get flood insurance in Florida, so they’re probably screwed down that avenue. They voted for the fucker, though, so… Karma?
It’s actually difficult to get any form of home insurance in Florida now. Many major insurance companies have left the state because they felt it was too risky.
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Flood insurance is provided by the NFIP, mostly, which is a federally run program by FEMA. The cost may be prohibitive in some areas due to the frequency of flooding unless mitigated but they will write anywhere.
That said communities can choose to not participate in the NFIP and as such flood insurance with the NFIP will be unavailable. (Maybe this is what you are referring to?) There are also some coverage limitations as far as maximum amounts, $250k building & $100k contents, they will cover that can require you to seek excess flood insurance from private companies.
There are private flood insurance companies as well but nearly everyone gets at least the first layer of coverage from the NFIP and uses private companies for excess.
I.e., taxpayers nationwide have their income tax dollars diverted so that people can have their homes rebuilt indefinitely on a glorified sandbar in a known high risk hurricane area.
The real problem was actually people with homes along the Mississippi River as it was well known to flood fairly regularly. But never the less people would rebuild their homes exactly as they were before every single time just for them to flood and be a total loss again. Eventually private insurance companies deemed flood an uninsurable risk and refused to cover it. This is in turn drove up the reliance on federal assistance for those affected by flooding.
(It’s important to note that all states in the US have been affected by flooding, either cyclical or flash, at one time or another.)
Once it became virtually impossible for people to get flood insurance the US government, when it was reasonable, stepped up and created the NFIP under FEMA to provide flood insurance to the public. The NFIP is designed to be a sustainable, not necessarily profitable, insurance program on its own and as mapping and modeling for things like floods improves it’s rating gets more in line with the risks it insures. That said it does get hamstrung by the government that created it by only allowing certain percentage amount rate changes for renewing customers and such but it is functioning like an actual proper insurance company.
Also, like all insurance the more people the NFIP insures the better off it is as it spreads it’s risk over a larger number of risks. Sadly flood insurance isn’t required everywhere so most of it’s risk is concentrated in high risk flood areas which is why it has the coverage limitations it does.
But to get back to original point what you are actually bitching about is FEMA not the NFIP. FEMA comes in and helps people regardless of what insurance they have.
Edit: And Citizens Property Insurance in Florida as well since the population of Florida pays to prop it up when its losses get to big. So you could bitch about that as well. Or the lack of regulations to force people to retrofit and build more wind resistant structures. Lots to bitch about other than the NFIP.
All I know is that the pointless waste of coastal rebuilding goes hand in hand with coastal states like NC literally outlawing using actual data to support their coastal policies. Instead of climate adaptation it’s epic waste and denialism.
Excellent info. Note I said it was difficult to get, not impossible. I’m including prohibitive costs in that difficulty since, if you can’t pay for it, it’s as good as not being available anyway.