September 13, 2011
senate.jpg

On September 7, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the distribution of the overall FY 2012 discretionary spending cap of $1.043 trillion among the 12 appropriations subcommittees.  The overall cap was set by the legislation increasing the federal debt limit.  These caps are known as the 302(b) allocations.  The Transportation-HUD Subcommittee’s 302(b) allocation is $55.3 billion, $100 million more than the House level and $117 million less than the FY 2011 enacted level.  The Agriculture Subcommittee’s allocation is $19.8 billion, $2.5 billion more than the House level and $141 million less than the FY 2011 enacted level.

The Senate Appropriations Committee also passed by a vote of 28 to 2, the FY 2012 Agriculture and Rural Development Appropriations bill, H.R. 2112.  The Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee did not hold a markup of the bill this year so the full Appropriations Committee held the first markup of H.R. 2112 in the Senate.  The House passed its version of the bill on June 16; see NCSHA’s blog for more information.

The Senate Committee-passed bill includes $900 million for the Section 502 single-family subsidized direct loan program, $54 million more than the House-passed level and $221 million less than in FY 2011.  It includes $24 billion for the Section 502 unsubsidized guaranteed loan program, the same as in the House-passed bill and as enacted in FY 2011.

In the report accompanying the bill, the Committee states its concern that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and lenders will not complete the automated systems changes necessary to support the annual fee announced by USDA last October.  The report states that “to ensure uninterrupted continuation of the program, the Secretary may increase the existing guarantee fee sufficient to cover subsidy costs.”

The bill includes $64.5 million for the Section 515 rural rental housing program, $6 million more than the House-passed level and $5 million less than in FY 2011.  It provides $130 million for the Section 538 multifamily loan guarantee program, which was funded at $31 million in FY 2011.  Funding for Section 538 was not included in the House-passed bill or in the President’s FY 2012 Budget request.  The Senate version does not contain language included in the House-passed version that would allow the 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 includes $11 million for the Section 542 rural housing voucher program, equal to the House-passed level and $3 million less than appropriated in FY 2011. The program provides vouchers for families living in Section 515-assisted properties whose owners prepay their mortgages.  The bill also includes $2 million for USDA’s Multifamily Preservation and Revitalization (MPR) program – a rural housing preservation demonstration program.  The program was funded at $15 million in FY 2011, but neither the House-passed FY 2012 bill nor the President’s FY 2012 Budget request included funding for the program.

The Senate has not yet announced a date for consideration of this bill on the Senate floor. 

The FY 2012 HUD appropriations bill has been passed by the House T-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee but has not been marked up in the full House Appropriations Committee or in the Senate T-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee.  It is expected that the Senate T-HUD Subcommittee will hold a markup of the HUD funding bill this month.  For more information on the HUD appropriations bill see NCSHA’s September 9 blog.

With none of the FY 2012 appropriations bills completed and FY 2012 beginning on October 1, Congress plans to pass a continuing resolution (CR) by the end of this  month to continue funding for all federally funded agencies and to allow it to continue working on individual appropriations bills and one or more longer-term omnibus appropriations bills funding multiple agencies.