Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD): FY2017 Appropriations
Released: 2017-04-05T00:00:00

Introduction to Transportation, HUD, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations

The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations Subcommittees are charged with drafting bills to provide annual appropriations for the Department of Transportation (DOT), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and six small related agencies.

Title I of the annual THUD appropriations bill funds DOT. The department is primarily a grant-making and regulatory organization. Its programs are organized roughly by mode of transportation, providing grants to state and local government agencies to support the construction of highways, transit, and intercity passenger rail infrastructure, while overseeing safety in the rail, public transportation, commercial trucking and intercity bus, and maritime industries. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is exceptional among DOT's large sub-agencies in that the largest portion of its budget is not for grants but for operating the U.S. air traffic control system. In support of that task, it employs over 80% of DOT's total workforce, roughly 46,000 of DOT's approximately 56,000 employees.

Title II of the annual THUD appropriations bill funds HUD. The department's programs are primarily designed to address housing problems faced by households with very low incomes or other special housing needs. These include several programs of rental assistance for persons who are poor, elderly, and/or have disabilities. Three rental assistance programs—Public Housing, Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers, and Section 8 project-based rental assistance—account for the majority of the department's funding. Two flexible block grant programs—the HOME Investment Partnership Program and Community Development Block Grants (CDBG)—help communities finance a variety of housing and community development activities designed to serve low-income families. Other, more specialized grant programs help communities meet the needs of homeless persons, including those with AIDS. HUD's Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insures mortgages made by lenders to home buyers with low down payments and to developers of multifamily rental buildings containing relatively affordable units.

Title III of the THUD appropriations bill funds a collection of agencies involved in transportation or housing and community development. They include the Access Board, the Federal Maritime Commission, the National Transportation Safety Board, the Amtrak Office of Inspector General (IG), the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation (often referred to as NeighborWorks), the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the costs associated with the government conservatorship and regulation of the housing-related government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Surface Transportation Board, formerly an agency of DOT, was made independent of DOT in 2015 legislation, and now appears in Title III of the THUD bill.

Budget Concepts Relevant to THUD Appropriations

Most of the programs and activities in the THUD bill are funded through regular annual appropriations , also referred to as discretionary appropriations. This is the amount of new funding allocated each year by the appropriations committees. Appropriations are drawn from the general fund of the Treasury. For some accounts, the appropriations committees provide advance appropriations , or regular appropriations that are not available until the next fiscal year.

In some years, Congress will also provide emergency appropriations , usually in response to disasters. These funds are sometimes provided outside of the regular appropriations acts—often in emergency supplemental spending bills. Although emergency appropriations typically come from the general fund, they may not be included in the discretionary appropriation total reported for an agency.

Most of DOT's budget is in the form of contract authority . Contract authority is a form of mandatory budget authority based on federal trust fund resources, in contrast to discretionary budget authority, which is based on resources in the general fund. Contract authority controls spending from the Highway Trust Fund and the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. Total annual discretionary budget authority for THUD is typically around half of the total funding provided in the bill, with the remainder made up of DOT's mandatory contract authority.

Congressional appropriators are generally subject to limits on the amount of new nonemergency discretionary funding they can provide in a year. One way to stay within these limits is to appropriate no more than the allocated amount of discretionary funding in the regular annual appropriations act. Another way is to find ways to offset a higher level of discretionary funding. A portion of the cost of regular annual appropriations for the THUD bill is generally offset in two ways. The first is through rescissions , or cancellations of unobligated or recaptured balances from previous years' funding. The second is through offsetting receipts and collections , generally derived from fees collected by federal agencies.

THUD Funding Trends

Table 1 shows funding trends for DOT and HUD over the period FY2010-FY2016, omitting emergency funding and other supplemental funding. The purpose of Table 1 is to indicate trends in the funding for these agencies; thus emergency supplemental appropriations are not included in the figures.

Status of the FY2017 THUD Appropriations Bill

Table 2 provides a timeline of legislative action on the FY2017 THUD appropriations bill.

FY2017 THUD Discretionary Funding Allocation

The annual budget resolution provides a budgetary framework within which Congress considers legislation affecting spending and revenue. It sets forth spending and revenue levels, including spending allocations to House and Senate committees. These levels are enforceable by a point of order. After the House and the Senate Appropriations Committees receive their discretionary spending allocations from the budget resolution (referred to as 302(a) allocations), they divide their allocations among their 12 subcommittees (referred to as the 302(b) allocations). Each subcommittee is responsible for one of the 12 regular appropriations bills. While a budget resolution and subcommittee allocations alone cannot be used to determine how much funding any individual account or program will receive, they do set the parameters within which decisions about funding for individual accounts and programs can be made.

The House and the Senate have not yet adopted a budget resolution for FY2017. In its absence, the Senate Budget Committee chair filed budgetary levels in the Congressional Record that are enforceable in the Senate as if they had been included in a budget resolution for FY2017. Based on these levels, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported their initial 302(b) suballocations on April 18, 2016. They included $56.474 billion for the THUD subcommittee, which is approximately $1 billion less than the comparable FY2016 level ($57.301 billion). In the absence of a budget resolution in the House, the House Appropriations Committee adopted "interim 302(b) suballocations" for the appropriations bills as they were marked up in full committee. These interim suballocations are not procedurally enforceable. A suballocation for the THUD subcommittee of $58.190 billion was included in H.Rept. 114-606 .

Table 3 shows the discretionary funding provided for THUD in FY2016, the Obama Administration request for FY2017, and the amount allocated by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to the THUD subcommittees. Table 4 lists the total funding provided for each of the titles in the bill for FY2016 and the amount requested for that title for FY2017.

As discussed earlier, much of the funding for this bill is in the form of contract authority, a type of mandatory budget authority. Thus the discretionary funding provided in the bill is only about half of the total funding provided in this bill.

FY2017 THUD Funding

As shown in Table 4 , the Obama Administration's FY2017 budget requested $134.5 billion for the programs in the THUD bill, $20.5 billion more than the $114.0 provided in FY2016. Most of the requested increase was for additional highway, transit, and rail funding; the request for DOT was $22 billion over FY2016. The request for HUD was $1.3 billion more than provided in FY2016. According to press reports, the Trump Administration has requested a reduction of $2.7 billion from FY2016 funding levels, zeroing out the Essential Air Services program and the TIGER (National Infrastructure Improvements) grant program and cutting funding for the New Starts program in DOT, and reducing funding for the Community Development Block Grants program in HUD.

The Senate-reported S. 2844 recommended $114.2 billion for THUD; after accounting for the differences in rescissions and offsetting receipts in FY2016, this represents an increase of less than 1% over FY2016 funding. This situation is explored further in the next section of this report and in Table 5 . Currently, FY2017 funding is being provided through April 28, 2017, through a Continuing Appropriations Resolution ( P.L. 114-254 ) at roughly the same level as in FY2016.

How Lower Budget Authority Becomes Greater Funding—The Impact of Offsets

In the case of the THUD bill, net discretionary budget authority (which is the level of funding measured against the 302(b) allocation) is not the same as the amount of new discretionary budget authority made available to THUD agencies, due to budgetary savings available from rescissions and offsets. Each dollar available to the subcommittees in rescissions and offsets enables the subcommittee to provide funding that does not count against the 302(b) level. As shown in Table 5 , in FY2016, due to rescissions and offsets, the THUD subcommittees were able to provide $8.7 billion in discretionary appropriations to THUD agencies above the net discretionary budget authority level.

The amount of these "budget savings" can vary from year to year, meaning that the "cost" in terms of 302(b) allocation of providing the appropriation may vary as well. With $2.15 billion more in rescissions and $579 million more in offsetting receipts and collections in FY2017 compared to FY2016, the Senate Committee on Appropriations was able to recommend $1.9 billion more discretionary funding for THUD for FY2017, even though the committee had given THUD a discretionary allocation that was $1.1 billion less than in FY2016.

Detailed Tables and Selected Key Issues

Title I: Department of Transportation

Table 6 presents FY2017 appropriations totals and selected accounts for DOT, compared to FY2016 enacted levels. A brief summary of key highlights follows the table. For an expanded discussion, see CRS Report R44499, Department of Transportation (DOT): FY2017 Appropriations , by David Randall Peterman.

DOT in Brief

Trump Administration Budget

According to press reports, the Trump Administration has requested a $1 billion reduction in DOT from FY2016 levels: zeroing out the Essential Air Services program (-$150 million) and the TIGER (National Infrastructure Investments) grant program (-$500 million), and reducing funding for the transit New Starts program by $400 million.

Senate Action

For DOT, the Senate bill included the following:

$76.9 billion in new budgetary resources, $1.8 billion (2%) above the comparable FY2016 figure and $20 billion below the Administration request (for budget scoring purposes, a rescission of $2.2 billion reduces the net total to $74.7 billion). On an inflation-adjusted basis, this would be the largest DOT appropriation since FY2011. Increases in funding for the federal-aid highway program ($905 million) and the federal public transportation program ($575 million). $85 million for new intercity rail grant programs, in addition to $1.42 billion for Amtrak, $30 million (2%) more than Amtrak received in FY2016.

House Action

The House Committee on Appropriations recommended the following:

The same amount of new budgetary resources as the Senate bill (unlike the Senate bill, there is no rescission of contract authority in the House-recommended bill, so the net total is larger than in the Senate bill). Increases in funding for the federal-aid highway program ($905 million) and the federal public transportation program ($743 million). $50 million for new intercity rail grant programs, in addition to $1.42 billion for Amtrak, $30 million (2%) more than Amtrak received in FY2016.

Obama Administration Budget

The Obama Administration's budget proposal for DOT included the following:

A request for $96.9 billion in budgetary resources, an increase of 29% over the amount provided for FY2016 (for budget scoring purposes, a rescission of $2.4 billion reduces the net total requested to $94.5 billion). $1.25 billion for National Infrastructure Investment (TIGER grants), a 150% increase in funding over FY2016. $51.5 billion for federal-aid highways, a 20% increase in funding over FY2016. $19.8 billion for public transportation, a 68% increase in funding over FY2016. $1.9 billion for Amtrak, a 37% increase in funding over FY2016, plus $4.1 billion for other programs to develop intercity passenger rail service.

Title II: Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Table 7 presents account-level funding information for HUD, comparing FY2016 with the FY2017 Obama Administration budget request and congressional action. It is followed by a brief summary of key highlights. For an expanded discussion, see CRS Report R44495, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): FY2017 Appropriations , coordinated by Maggie McCarty.

HUD in Brief

Trump Administration Budget

According to press reports, the Trump Administration has recommended a $1.5 billion reduction in funding from the FY2016 level for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program.

House Action

H.R. 5394 , as reported by the House Appropriations Committee, would provide the following for HUD:

$47.95 billion in gross appropriations, which is approximately $1 billion more in appropriations than was provided in FY2016 but about $1 billion less than was requested by the Obama Administration. $38.7 billion in net budget authority, reflecting savings from offsets and other sources, which is about $84 million more than FY2016. Level funding for Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) relative to FY2016, which is a $200 million increase over the Obama Administration's requested funding level. Funding increases, to cover the cost of renewing subsidies in the Section 8 tenant-based (Housing Choice Voucher) and project-based rental assistance accounts (+$560 million and +$281 million relative to FY2016). No funding for new incremental vouchers.

Senate Action

For HUD the Senate bill (the substitute amendment to H.R. 2577 , as passed by the Senate) would provide the following:

$48.4 billion in gross appropriations, which is approximately $1.5 billion more in appropriations than was provided in FY2016 but about $500 million less than was requested by the Obama Administration. $39.2 billion in net budget authority, reflecting savings from offsets and other sources, which is $890 million more than FY2016 ($1.5 billion more in appropriations and $610 million more in savings from offsets, excluding disaster funding). Level funding for Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) relative to FY2016, which is a $200 million increase over the Obama Administration's requested funding level. Funding increases, largely to cover the cost of renewing subsidies in the Section 8 tenant-based (Housing Choice Voucher) and project-based rental assistance accounts (+$800 million and +$281 million relative to FY2016). Proposes funding for new incremental vouchers for youth aging out of foster care and homeless veterans.

Obama Administration's Budget

The Obama Administration's FY2017 budget request for HUD included the following:

$48.9 billion in gross appropriations, which is $1.9 billion more in gross appropriations than was provided in FY2016, excluding disaster funding. $39.7 billion in net budget authority, reflecting savings from offsets and other sources, which is $1.3 billion more than FY2016 ($1.9 billion more in appropriations and $600 million more in savings available from offsets). Increases in funding for most HUD programs, including funding for new incremental Section 8 Housing Choice vouchers. A 7% funding cut for CDBG, with a proposal to revisit the way funding is distributed to communities.

Title III: Related Agencies

Table 8 shows appropriations levels for the various related agencies funded within the Transportation, HUD, and Related Agencies appropriations bill. The Surface Transportation Board was transferred from the DOT title to the Related Agencies title starting with FY2017.

Related Agencies, In Brief

U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH ) . The House Appropriations Committee-passed bill would reduce funding for the USICH by $1.5 million, from $3.5 million in FY2016 to $2 million in FY2017. The law establishing the USICH provides that it will sunset on October 1, 2017. The committee report ( H.Rept. 114-606 ) notes that funding is reduced in anticipation of the sunset date, states that funding could be better used to serve individuals experiencing homelessness directly, and encourages member agencies to establish working relationships that will extend beyond the USICH's sunset. The Obama Administration's budget requested that the sunset date be extended until October 1, 2020. The Senate Appropriations Committee-passed bill would extend the sunset date to October 1, 2018. NeighborWorks America. Neither the House Committee-passed bill nor the Senate-passed bill would provide funding for foreclosure mitigation counseling administered by the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, commonly known as NeighborWorks America. Funding for foreclosure mitigation counseling has been provided to NeighborWorks America in each year since FY2008; this funding was intended to be temporary, and both the House and Senate committee reports note that home foreclosure rates have been declining in recent years. The Obama Administration's budget also did not request funding for foreclosure mitigation counseling for NeighborWorks America for FY2017. Both the House Committee-passed bill and the Senate-passed bill (and the Obama Administration's budget request) would continue to provide funding to NeighborWorks America for broader community reinvestment activities, and would continue to provide other funding for housing counseling activities to HUD.