June 21, 2011
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On June 16, the House passed, by a vote of 217 to 203, its FY 2012 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriations bill, H.R. 2112. The bill includes $17.25 billion in discretionary spending, $2.7 billion less than the FY 2011 spending level and $5 billion less than the President’s request.
 
Two housing-related amendments were offered on the floor during the debate but were not accepted. Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) offered an amendment to take $100 million out of a non-housing account and transfer it to the Multifamily Housing Revitalization Program account. The amendment failed by a vote of 139 to 285. Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) offered an amendment to reduce Rural Housing Assistance Grants by $20.5 million to further reduce the bill’s spending level. The amendment failed by a voice vote.
 
An amendment offered by Representative Scott Garrett (R-NJ) that would require commodity swap data reporting rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act to be in effect for one year before real-time reporting rules could be fully enforced, allowing the industry time to comply with the new rules, was accepted on the floor, by a vote of 231 to 189.  For governmental and tax-exempt issuers that use certain types of derivatives, such as SIFMA swaps, the delay in the real-time reporting rules is important to assess the effect of the requirements on market pricing.
 
As NCSHA reported in its May 31 blog, the bill includes $846 million for the Section 502 single-family subsidized direct loan program, a $276 million decrease from FY 2011 and $634 million more than the President’s FY 2012 request. It includes $24 billion for the Section 502 unsubsidized guaranteed loan program, the same as in FY 2011 and the President's request.The bill includes $59 million for the Section 515 rural rental housing program, $11 million less than in FY 2011 and $37 million less than the President’s request.

H.R. 2112 does not provide funding for the Section 538 multifamily loan guarantee program, which was funded at $31 million in FY 2011.  However, the bill includes language that would allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to use in the Section 502 single-family guaranteed loan program the authority it currently has under the Section 538 program to authorize lenders to issue certificates of guarantee.  The bill does not contain additional detail on this provision.  NCSHA will work with Congress and USDA to determine how this new authority would work if the language were to become law.  The President did not request funding for the Section 538 program for FY 2012.

The bill includes $11 million for the Section 542 rural housing voucher program, $3 million less than appropriated in FY 2011 and $5 million less than the President's request.  The program provides vouchers for families living in Section 515-assisted properties whose owners prepay their mortgages.

This is the third FY 2012 appropriations bill passed by the House. The Transportation-HUD Subcommittee will determine the amount of funding for HUD and its individual programs between now and the Subcommittee markup, currently scheduled for July 14.  Now is the time to contact appropriators to stress the value of federal housing programs and the importance of protecting them from further cuts. 

Because the Senate has not yet considered an FY 2012 budget resolution, the Senate Appropriations Committee’s schedule is uncertain.  However, it is still timely and important to contact Senate appropriators on your spending priorities.