Title: To amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to provide for the authority to reimburse local governments for interest expenses, and for other purposes.
Policy area: Emergency Management

Summary:
This bill authorizes the President to reimburse local governments for interest expenses for loans pertaining to disaster relief.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5059 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 5059

     To amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency 
    Assistance Act to provide for the authority to reimburse local 
       governments for interest expenses, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           November 13, 2019

   Mr. Dunn introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
             Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
     To amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency 
    Assistance Act to provide for the authority to reimburse local 
       governments for interest expenses, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. REIMBURSEMENT OF INTEREST PAYMENTS RELATED TO PUBLIC 
              ASSISTANCE.

    Title IV of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency 
Assistance Act is amended by adding at the end the following:

``SEC. 431. REIMBURSEMENT OF INTEREST PAYMENTS RELATED TO PUBLIC 
              ASSISTANCE.

    ``(a) In General.--The President may provide financial assistance 
to a local government as reimbursement for qualifying interest.
    ``(b) Definitions.--In this section, the following definitions 
apply:
            ``(1) Qualifying interest.--The term `qualifying interest' 
        means, with respect to a qualifying loan, the lesser of--
                    ``(A) the actual interest paid to a lender for such 
                qualifying loan; and
                    ``(B) the interest that would have been paid to a 
                lender if such qualifying loan had an interest rate of 
                2 times the discount window primary credit interest 
                rate most recently published on the Federal Reserve 
                Statistical Release on selected interest rates (daily 
                or weekly) (commonly referred to as the `H.15 release' 
                or the `Federal funds rate').''.
            ``(2) Qualifying loan.--The term `qualifying loan' means a 
        loan--
                    ``(A) obtained by a local government; and
                    ``(B) of which not less than 90 percent of the 
                proceeds are used to fund activities for which such 
                local government receives assistance under this Act 
                after the date on which such loan is disbursed.''.
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