By Jake Bittle
Florida may also present Trump with one of his thorniest political challenges: FEMA is hiking insurance rates and punishing flood-prone construction in the president-elect’s favourite state.
Donald Trump owes a lot to his adopted home state of Florida. The state, which is the third-largest in the Electoral College, has delivered him increasingly large majorities in each of the past three elections. Since his victory in November, the president-elect has announced plans to remake the federal government in Florida’s image: His nominees for secretary of state, attorney general, chief of staff, and national security advisor are all from the Sunshine State.
But Florida may also present Trump with one of his thorniest political challenges. He’ll have to oversee the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has spent the past four years bringing down the hammer on Americans who live in disaster-prone regions like Florida’s populous coasts, rolling out a series of insurance hikes and enforcement actions that make it more expensive to live and rebuild in risky areas.
This ongoing effort is a direct threat to the boom of cheap coastal development that has fueled the Sunshine State’s breakneck growth. Florida accounts for a huge share of the nation’s total risk from hurricanes and floods: It has more than $2 trillion in residential property, almost all of which is vulnerable to extreme winds or flooding, and it accounts for more than a third of all policies in the federal government’s public National Flood Insurance Program. FEMA is now raising premiums in that flood insurance program by around 18 percent per year in parts of the state – based on a formula developed during Trump’s first term – and it’s also penalizing Floridians who rebuild their homes in dangerous areas.
In conservative Lee County, which lost more than 5,000 homes to Hurricane Ian in 2022, a backlash has reached a fever pitch. Last spring, FEMA accused the county and several of its cities, including Fort Myers Beach, of disregarding federal rules that require homeowners to elevate their homes when rebuilding after floods, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars per home but lowers the amount that taxpayers will have to pay for future disaster relief in the area.
Lee County towns allowed hundreds of homeowners to rebuild at ground level after Ian, according to FEMA, and in response the agency moved to take away their flood insurance discounts, which could raise average insurance costs by hundreds of dollars per year. County leaders accused the federal government of “revenge politics” and threatened to sue.
