State officials have called the duplication of benefits penalty one of the biggest hurdles to recovery from the 2016 floods. Thousands of Louisiana homeowners who flooded more than two years ago took out Small Business Administration loans to help pay for the damage, but doing so made accessing recovery grants from the state nearly impossible.
That is, until earlier this month, when Congress approved a fix to the duplication of benefits penalty.
Representative Garret Graves has been pushing for the change for a year now. On this week's Capitol Access, he discusses what the fix will mean for flooded homeowners and how it will impact the region's recovery efforts.