After Congress passed a very short-term extension of the National Flood Insurance Program, the prospects for substantive reform of the program look dim, according to the outgoing chairman of an important U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee.

Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wisc., told S&P Global Market Intelligence in an interview that long-term reform of the program may now be dead in the water. An effort to reform the embattled program over the last two years has been beset by hard-line factions that did not want to change the program. Duffy chairs the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee on the House Financial Services Committee, a post he will give up after Democrats regained control of the lower chamber in the midterm elections.

Congress earlier this week advanced a bill reauthorizing the NFIP in its present form for a week and is set to extend it for an additional six months in the near future. Along with the one-week extension, the Senate passed a six-month reauthorization of the program that provides flood insurance coverage for more than 5 million homeowners without any reforms. The House has yet to take up that longer extension, though Duffy sees that as likely.

"We're going to pass a longer-term extension, and then next year you'll see a bill with no reform," Duffy said. "We have a very powerful group of Republicans and Democrats who don't want any reforms to this program."

The six-month extension would run until May 31, 2019.