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Californians are very underinsured for earthquakes — a problem we examined in a recent article.

But who owns the risk?

A study set to be published next week by a Washington-based research organization argues that the federal government is glaringly exposed to earthquake risk and should be taking steps to protect itself — and American taxpayers — from the next big one.

R.J. Lehmann, a researcher at the R Street Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes free markets, calculates that the two federally supervised mortgage finance institutions known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could lose as much as $50 billion to $100 billion in a big earthquake because they own so many uninsured mortgages in seismically risky areas like California.

“Our message is that this is the largest uninsured catastrophe risk currently in the financial markets,” Mr. Lehmann said in an interview. “Among those who are holding the bag is the U.S. Treasury.”