Judicial Nominations
Since 6:00 p.m. Wednesday night, the Senate has been debating stalled nominations to the Federal Circuit (Appellate Courts). By way of clarification, this debate has been a round-the-clock affair since Wednesday evening; the Senate has been in continuous session and has not adjourned. Judicial nominations have been the only order of business since Wednesday evening. Republicans have called the debate “Justice for Judges,” while Democrats have labeled it a “filibuster.” At the time of this writing, the debate was still going…
Appropriations
The Senate began consideration of the 2004 VA-HUD bill (HR 2861) on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the Senate did not complete the bill prior to the previously agreed upon 6:00 pm debate on judges. According to the schedule listed on the Senate’s official website, the bill may come back to the Senate floor for completion sometime today. In my opinion, even if the Senate does complete action on a stand-alone VA-HUD bill, the final conference legislation is likely to come back as part of a larger “omnibus” appropriations bill.
Some noteworthy action on VA-HUD did occur on Wednesday before the Senate switched focus. Senator Bond, Chairman of the VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, began debate on the bill by noting HUD programs are funded, ”either at last year’s level or the budget request, and usually the higher of the two.” Then, he addressed concerns that had been raised about the adequacy of Section 8 funding as follows:
“The administration proposed funding section 8 vouchers through a new account, Housing Assistance for Needy Families, which would have allocated section 8 certificates through a State block grant program. Under the budget request, section 8 project-based housing assistance would have continued to be funded through HUD. This program has been uniformly criticized and could have placed a number of families at risk of losing their housing over the next few years.
“Instead, we funded the section 8 certificate fund at $18.4 billion, consistent with the budget request, without the new program structure. Many groups say this appropriation is inadequate and could result in the loss of housing. I share these concerns with several qualifications.
“First, in previous bills we restructured the account to provide funding to PHAs only for the families actually using vouchers and then with the central reserve at HUD, to ensure additional funds would be available to fund vouchers for additional families up to the PHA–that is, public housing authority–authorized contract level.
“This is new. The data is incomplete. There is a risk that there are not enough funds in the appropriation to meet all the needs of all families. But we do not know what that number will be.
“In past years, HUD has found additional excess section 8 funding to meet all section 8 needs, and no doubt will next year and the year after until this new funding system is in place and data is reliable.
“Nevertheless, we made it clear in the report that we expect the administration to alert us to any shortfalls and that we expect any shortfalls to be funded fully in a supplemental appropriations request.”
A statement in Wednesday’s Congressional Record from Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Paul Sarbanes concurred,
“Fortunately, we have reason to believe that HUD has funds from prior years to use on [Section 8] voucher renewals, and the bill before us directs HUD to use all legally available funds for this purpose. The bill contains important provisions that preserve a housing agency’s right to lease up to its authorized level of vouchers, and to overlease in a given month where necessary to achieve full utilization. It is my hope that these provisions avert any problems that could be caused by the low level of appropriations for this program. However, I fully support language in the report directing HUD to seek additional funding through a supplemental if necessary.”
As amendments were considered, the Senate approved an important NAHMA-supported measure by voice vote. Introduced by Senator Paul Sarbanes, amendment No. 2183 expressed the sense of the Senate” that housing vouchers are a critical resource and that the Department of Housing and Urban Development should ensure that all vouchers can be used by low-income families.” The bipartisan amendment had 23 cosponsors.
Another noteworthy amendment offered by Senator Bond (amendment 2180) requires HUD to make any changes to the public housing operating fund formula by negotiated rulemaking.
