Posted: 08/31/2006
Katrina Anniversary Highlights Need To End Destructive Subsidies To Coastal Development
DALLAS (August 31, 2006) - As the nation remembers the tragedy of Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, an expert with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) suggests government should heed the lessons of Katrina and end destructive subsidies to coastal development.
"What could have been merely a very bad weather event turned into a catastrophic human tragedy due to unwise development," said H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow with the NCPA. "The government should not foster, let alone finance, development in environmentally-sensitive, highly disaster-prone areas. Yet government is subsidizing, and therefore encouraging, building on coastal wetlands and beaches."
Burnett noted that the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' flood control and beach restoration projects subsidize and encourage coastal development by shifting the cost of insurance and physical protection against floods from property owners to taxpayers. From 1928 through 2001, the Corps spent $123 billion (adjusted for inflation) on flood control projects nationwide.
Burnett noted that the best way to protect coastal resources is to end all subsidies that encourage human occupation. "Ending these programs wouldn't prevent property owners from developing their lands as they choose, but it would ensure that property owners, not the taxpayers, would bear the full cost of those development decisions," said Burnett.