(a) The Legislature finds that:
(1) The National Flood Insurance Program is a federal program that enables property owners in participating communities to purchase flood insurance. A community participates in the federal program by adopting and enforcing flood plain management regulations that meet or exceed federal flood plain management criteria designed to reduce future flood risk to new construction in flood plains. The program was created by Congress in 1968 because insurance covering the peril of flood was often unavailable in the private insurance market and was intended to reduce the amount of financial aid paid by the federal government in the aftermath of flood-related disasters. After the creation of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), flood insurance coverage continued to be generally unavailable for purchase from private market insurance companies.