FLOOD09407

• County: Statewide
• Basin: Statewide
• Title: Sharing the Challenge: Floodplain Management into the 21st Century
• Date: 6/1/1994
• Prepared For: Administration Floodplain Management Task Force
• Prepared By: Interagency Floodplain Mmanagement Review Committee
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Community File

COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS

The Review Committee developed recommendations in
consonance with the proposed goals:

. To ensure that the floodplain management
effon is organized for success, the President should:

Propose enactment of a Floodplain
Management Act which establishes a national
model for floodplain management, clearly
delineates federal, state, tribal, and local
responsibilities, provides fiscal suppon for state
and local floodplain management activities, and
recognizes states as the nation's principal
floodplain managers;

Issue a revised Executive Order clearly
defining the responsibility of federal agencies
to exercise sound judgement in floodplain
activities; and

Activate the Water Resources Council to
coordinate federal and federal-state-tribal
activities in water resources; as appropriate,
reestablish basin commissions to provide a
forum for federal-state-tribal coordination on
regional issues.

. To focus attention on comprehensive
evaluation of all federal water project and program
effects, the President should immediately establish
environmental quality and national economic
development as co-equal objectives of planning
conducted under the Principles and Guidelines,
Principles and Guidelines should be revised to
accommodate the new objectives i!Ild to ensure full
consideration of nonstruclUral alternatives.

. To enhance coordination of project
development, to address multiple objective planning,
and to increase customer service, the Administration
should suppon collaborative effons among federal
agencies and across state, tribal, and local governments.

. To ensure continuing state, tribal and local
interest in floodplain management success, the
Administration should provide for federal, state , tribal ,

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

andlor local cost-sharing in pre-disaster, recovery,
response, and mitigation activities.

. To provide for coordination of the multiple
federal programs dealing with watershed management,
the Administration should establish an Interagency Task
Force to develop a coordination strategy to guide these
actions.

. To take full advantage of existing federal
programs which enhance the floodplain environment
and provide for natural storage in bottomlands and
uplands, the Administration should:

Seek legislative authority to increase
post-disaster flexibility in the execution of the
land acquisition programs;

Increase environmental attention in federal
operation and maintenance and disaster
recovery activities;

Better coordinate the environmentally-related
land interest acquisition activities of the federal
government; and

Fund, through existing authorities,
programmatic acquisition of needed iimds from
willing sellers.

. To enhance the efficiency and effectiveness
of the National Flood Insurance Program, the
Administration should:

Take vigorous steps~o improve the marketing
of flood insurance, enforee lender compliance
rules, and seek state suppott of insurance
marketing;

Reduce the amount of post-disaster suppon to
those who were eligible to buy insurance but
did not to that level needed to provide for
immediate health, safety, and welfare; provide
a safety net for low income flood victims who
were unable to afford flood insurance;

xi