Costs hitting taxpayers more than insurers.

• Position: Extreme Weather - Natural disasters - Brief article

Taxpayers in this country paid nearly $100,000,000,000 responding to damages caused by last year's extreme weather events, about $1,100 per taxpayer, according to an analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, D.C.

"While Congress debates the Federal budget, our government is spending more responding to extreme weather made worse by climate change than we are to educate our kids or take care of our bridges and roads," asserts Dan Lashof, coauthor of the report and director of NRDC's Climate and Clean Air Program. "In fact, this single-ticket expense now tops the list of nondefense discretionary Federal spending--and taxpayers are shouldering more of the burden. They are spending three times more than private insurers to pay for recovery from climate damages."

The cost of what NRDC calls the "Climate Disruption Budget" equals one of every six dollars spent on non-defense discretionary programs, making it the largest such spending item, the NRDC claims. The insurance industry estimates that 2012 was the second-most...