Senate Appropriations Committee Unveils Funding Bills
This week, the Senate Committee on Appropriations unveiled all twelve of its Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) funding bills, including Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD) and Department of Agriculture (Agriculture-FDA).
The Senate’s T-HUD funding bill would provide HUD with $59.5 billion in funding – more than $11 billion above the president’s FY21 request and $2.9 billion above FY20 enacted levels, but nearly $2 billion less than the House proposal. The Senate bill provides enough funding to renew all existing contracts provided through Housing Choice Vouchers ($25.5 billion) and Project-Based Rental Assistance ($13.4 billion), assuming additional costs will be met through an additional coronavirus relief package. Several other critical affordable housing and community development programs saw slight increases over the enacted FY20 funding levels, including:
- $1.375 billion for the HOME Investment Partnerships program—increase of $25 million
- $3.46 billion for the Community Development Block Grants—increase of $30 million
- $7.44 billion for public housing—increase of $20 million
- $853 million for Section 202 Housing for the Elderly—increase of $60 million
- $237 million for Section 811 Housing for People with Disabilities—increase of $35 million
- $70 million for Fair Housing
- $360 million for Healthy Homes & Lead Hazard—increase of $70 million
To view the FY21 T-HUD full bill text, click here. To view a section-by-section summary of the FY21 T-HUD funding bill, click here.
The Senate’s FY21 Agriculture-FDA funding bill would provide $23.98 billion in funding for rural development and infrastructure. This amount largely provides level funding with only slight increases to USDA Rural Housing Service programs, including:
- $1.41 billion for Section 521 Rural Rental Assistance—increase of $35 million
- $40 million for Section 515 Rental Housing Direct Loans, including $6.7 million for the 515 Subsidy
- $62 million for the Multifamily Preservation and Revitalization demonstration, including $34 million for Section 542 vouchers and $28 million for a housing preservation demonstration program
To view the FY21 Agriculture-FDA full bill text, click here. To view a section-by-section summary of the FY21 Agriculture-FDA funding bill, click here.
Now that the Senate has released the text of its funding bills, the House and the Senate will have until December 11th, when the current Continuing Resolution is set to expire, to reach an agreement in order to prevent a government shutdown.
Congress Preps for COVID-19 Negotiations, Possible Government Shutdown
Both the House and Senate went into recess before the election without coming to an agreement on additional COVID-19 emergency relief funding. Failing to reach a compromise after months of difficult negotiations, both chambers will return to Washington, D.C. next week with the hopes of still being able to reach a deal. However, it’s clear that reaching a compromise could still be difficult and largely depends on who will win control of the Senate (Georgia will have a run-off election for two Senate seats in January). In the aftermath of the elections, both Republicans and Democrats don’t appear to have budged from their stances on what type of relief should be included for Americans. For months, top Democratic leaders and the White House worked to come to a bipartisan compromise on another coronavirus stimulus bill. Negotiations were called off multiple times only to restart with promises that leaders were close to striking a deal. Republican leaders have stated they will not support a relief package that goes past their previous $500 billion proposal.
Historically, the lame-duck session has not led to large bipartisan pieces of legislation and Congress’ top priority during the short session will now be a spending bill to avert a government shutdown on December 11th. Although a COVID-19 stimulus deal remains a priority for many Americans, Congress will have little time to resolve all its policy differences, reach an agreement and then pass the funding bill through both chambers before the House and Senate leave in December. The House concludes their session on December 10th, and the Senate ends their session on December 18th.