The idiom "kicking the can down the road" has been used so many times about the National Flood Insurance Program that the NFIP itself could probably replace the cliche as an analogy for procrastination: "I did an NFIP and got an extension on my taxes."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood-insurance program will lose funding after Tuesday unless Congress can agree on a new budget that includes a temporary authorization lasting all the way until … Nov. 21. At that point Congress will have to rear its foot back for yet another punt. As of this writing, there have been 33 such temporary reauthorizations since 2017. A 34th and 35th will do nothing to solve the program’s deep-rooted problems, which are only growing more urgent and expensive as the planet gets hotter.

Letting the NFI

See Full Page