Maggie McCarty
Specialist in Housing Policy
David Randall Peterman
Analyst in Transportation Policy
The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) appropriations subcommittee is charged with providing annual appropriations for the Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and related agencies. The HUD budget generally accounts for the largest share of discretionary appropriations provided by the subcommittee. However, when mandatory funding is taken into account, DOT’s budget is larger than HUD’s budget, because it includes funding from transportation trust funds. Mandatory funding typically accounts for a little less than half of the bill total.
The President’s FY2013 budget requested $73.4 billion in new budget resources for DOT. The requested funding was $3.5 billion (5%) more than the amount provided for FY2012 (not counting $1.7 billion in FY2012 emergency funding). Both the House-passed bill and Senate Committee on Appropriations’ bill have recommended roughly the same level of funding as in FY2012 (not counting the emergency funding). The House-passed FY2013 THUD bill (H.R. 5972) would provide no funding for the Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program or for the high speed and intercity passenger rail development program, two priorities of the Administration. The pending Senate THUD bill (S. 2322) would fund the TIGER program and provide a minimal level of funding for high speed rail development ($100 million, compared to $1.0 billion requested). The Administration request proposed a restructuring of DOT surface transportation programs reflecting a reauthorization proposal (a similar proposal was included in last year’s request). The Appropriations Committees did not support the requested restructuring; in July 2012 Congress passed surface transportation reauthorization legislation which differed from the Administration proposal.
The President’s FY2013 budget requested nearly $34 billion in net new budget authority for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in FY2013. This is about $4 billion less than was provided in FY2012. However, in terms of new appropriations for HUD’s programs and activities, the President’s budget actually requested an increase of more than $512 million compared to FY2012. The difference—a decrease in net budget authority vs. an increase in new appropriations—is attributable to an estimated increase in the amount of excess receipts available from the FHA insurance fund, which are used to offset the cost of the HUD budget. S. 2322 included about $35 billion in net new budget authority for HUD. That is about $1 billion more than the President’s request and over $2 billion less than was provided in FY2012. H.R. 5972 included $33.6 billion for HUD, which is less than the Senate proposed but more than the President requested.
The Administration has threatened to veto the House bill. In part this threat came because of the House’s overall discretionary funding level for FY2013, which is below the ceiling allowed for FY2013 in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Another stated reason for the threat is opposition to certain program funding levels in the bill, such as zeroing out the DOT TIGER and high speed rail programs and the HUD Choice Neighborhoods and Sustainable Communities programs, as well as cuts to HUD homeless assistance grants and other programs. Congress has passed a continuing resolution (H.J.Res. 117) providing funding for federal agencies at roughly the FY2012 level for the first six months of FY2013.
Date of Report: September 27, 2012
Number of Pages: 27
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