In Sandy's wake, lawmaker suggests buyout program for flood-prone homes

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) said Wednesday that Congress should create a program that would allow the federal government to buy homes likely to be in the path of increasingly violent storms caused by global warming.

"We have to look at, in some cases, buyouts," Pallone said on the House floor. "When, in other words, people have said, 'Look, we can't do this every two or three years, and so can we have the government buy our home, or ... what's left of it."

Pallone's home state was severely damaged by Superstorm Sandy just weeks ago, and he and other Democrats said they see Sandy as evidence of global warming.

"I have no doubt these more severe and frequent storms are a consequence of climate change," he said. "I've been around 60 years, and I've never seen a storm like this. Nobody has.

"They say it's the 500-year storm. Well, I'm afraid ... that the 500-year storm is now a 10-year storm. And the nor'easter that we would get every 20 years is gonna happen every year." 

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) said he agrees that Sandy is proof of climate change.

"There's another set of lessons to be learned from Superstorm Sandy, and the drought in the Midwest, and other occurrences in the weather patterns of this nation, and that is that climate change is real," Garamendi said. "It is real. It is actually happening as we speak.

"We know that the great ice caps around this world are diminishing. We know that the ocean levels are rising. We know that there is a warming across this entire planet, and we know that this will have profound effects."

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