On December 19, 2007, Congress enacted the FY2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act (attached to H.R. 2764 ), to fund most of the federal government, including HUD, for the remainder of the fiscal year. The overall HUD funding level provided in the Consolidated Appropriations Act is less than originally approved by either the House, Senate, or a House-Senate conference committee, but is about $2 billion higher than the President's request. It funds most HUD programs at the levels provided in the conference agreement ( H.Rept. 110-446 ), although it reduces funding for some programs, including the HOPE VI program, the HOME program, and the Community Development Block Grant program. It also reduces funding for HUD's Research and Technology, Working Capital, and Management Expenses accounts. Additionally, the bill contains a rescission of over $720 million in advance appropriations for the Section 8 voucher program. The bill was signed into law by the President on December 26, 2007 ( P.L. 110-161 ). None of the FY2008 appropriations bills were enacted before the start of the fiscal year. On September 27, 2007, Congress approved a continuing resolution (CR) funding most programs at their FY2007 funding levels through November 16, 2007 ( P.L. 110-92 ). A second CR, which continued funding through December 14, 2007, was attached to the FY2008 Defense appropriations conference agreement and approved by Congress on November 8, 2007 ( P.L. 110-116 ). The second CR also included $3 billion in additional emergency supplemental Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds for Louisiana's Hurricane Katrina recovery program, called the Road Home. A third CR ( P.L. 110-137 ) provided funding through December 21, 2007, and a fourth CR ( H.J.Res. 72 ) was slated to expire at the earlier of December 31, 2007, or the date the President signed the FY2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act (discussed above). On November 8, 2007, House and Senate conferees agreed to an FY2008 Transportation-HUD funding bill ( H.Rept. 110-446 ). The conference agreement would have provided $38.66 billion for HUD. It was approved by the House on November 14, 2007; it was never considered by the Senate. The President, in a Statement of Administration Policy, indicated that if the bill had been sent to him, he would have vetoed it because its funding level exceeded his request. Most of the funding for the activities of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) comes from discretionary appropriations provided each year in the annual appropriations acts enacted by Congress. HUD'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 the poor, elderly, or disabled. Three rental assistance programs—Public Housing, Section 8 Vouchers, and Section 8 project-based rental assistance—account for the majority of the Department's funding (nearly 75% in FY2007). Two flexible block grant programs, HOME and Community Development Block Grants, help communities finance a variety of housing and community development activities designed to serve low-income families. Other, more specialized, block grants help communities meet the needs of homeless persons, including those with AIDS. In recent years, HUD has also focused more attention on efforts to increase the homeownership rates for lower-income and minority households with programs providing funding for downpayment assistance and housing counseling. HUD's Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insures mortgages made by lenders to lower-income home buyers, many with below-average credit records, and to developers of multifamily rental buildings containing relatively affordable units. FHA collects fees from insured borrowers, which are used to sustain the insurance fund and offset its administrative costs. Surplus FHA funds are used to offset the cost of the HUD budget. Congress did not complete most FY2007 appropriations bills before the beginning of the fiscal year or before the close of the 109 th Congress, when the party control of Congress changed. In order to keep the government running, the 109 th Congress approved a series of stop gap funding measures, called continuing resolutions, that maintained government funding at the lower of the FY2006 enacted, House-passed, or Senate-passed level. On February 15, 2007, the 110 th Congress approved a revised continuing resolution covering the remainder of FY2007 ( P.L. 110-5 ). It funded most programs at their FY2006 level, although it specified higher or lower funding levels for some programs, including several HUD programs. Specifically, the CR funded six HUD accounts above their FY2006 level: Tenant Based Rental Assistance: $15,920 million for FY2007; Project-Based Rental Assistance: $5,976 million for FY2007; Public Housing Operating Fund: $3,864 million for FY2007; Indian Housing Loan Guarantee: $6 million for FY2007; Homeless Assistance Grants: $1,442 million for FY2007; and Salaries and Expenses: the FY2006 levels, plus such sums as necessary to meet 50% of the need for cost-of-living increases for federal employees for FY2007. The CR funded three HUD accounts below their FY2006 level: Self Help and Assisted Homeownership: $49 million for FY2007; Research and Technology: $50 million for FY2007; and Community Development Fund: $3,772 million for FY2007. The 110 th Congress approved an FY2007 supplemental funding bill that made several changes to the FY2007 CR. The U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Act ( P.L. 110-28 ) provided additional funding for HUD's Inspector General in order to oversee Hurricane Katrina funding, additional funding for the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, language clarifying how the Department should distribute FY2007 Section 8 voucher funding, language extending the availability of Katrina voucher funds, and language clarifying how HUD should treat the renewal of certain project-based voucher contracts. (For more details on the FY2007 budget for HUD, see CRS Report RL33344, The Department of Housing and Urban Development: FY2007 Budget , by [author name scrubbed] et al.) Table 2 presents the President's FY2008 HUD budget request compared to the prior year's appropriations, as well as House and Senate measures, and the final, enacted funding law. The following section of the report provides a detailed discussion of the majority of accounts included in Table 2 . Note that the unit of funding may vary between millions and thousands from table to table. The tenant-based rental assistance account funds the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. (See CRS Report RL32284, An Overview of the Section 8 Housing Programs , by [author name scrubbed].) Section 8 vouchers are portable rent subsidies that low-income families use to reduce their housing costs in the private market. HUD currently funds more than 2 million Section 8 vouchers, which are administered at the local level by quasi-governmental Public Housing Authorities (PHAs). This account—the largest in HUD's budget—funds the cost of those vouchers and the cost of administering the program. Each year for the past several years, the tenant-based rental assistance account has included an advance appropriation. Generally, Congress provides the account with new budget authority equal to an amount of funding available to be used in the current fiscal year, as well as an advance appropriation to be used in the subsequent fiscal year. And, each year, the amount of budget authority newly available for the account is equal to the amount of funding provided for use in the current fiscal year, plus the advance appropriation provided in the previous fiscal year. For most years, the advance available from the prior year and the advance that is provided for the subsequent year has been the same: $4.2 billion. As a result, the new budget authority for the tenant-based rental assistance account has equaled the budget authority newly available for the account each fiscal year. For example, as shown in Table 4 , the FY2006 appropriations act authorized $11,374 million in new budget authority for use in FY2006 and $4,200 million in new budget authority for use in FY2007, and $4,200 million provided in FY2005 became newly available in FY2006. However, in FY2007, Congress provided only $4,193 million in advance appropriations for use in FY2008, less than the $4.2 billion that became available in FY2007 from the FY2006 appropriation. As a result, in FY2007, the amount of new budget authority authorized in FY2007 was less than the budget authority newly available for FY2007 by $7 million. As shown in the FY2007 column of Table 4 , $15,920 million in new budget authority was authorized by the FY2007 law, while $15,927 million was budget authority newly available to be obligated in FY2007. As shown in Table 3 , the FY2007 appropriations act directed HUD how to allocate only $15,920 million of the $15,927 million available for allocation. It is unclear how HUD chose to allocate the remaining $7 million. Again for FY2008, Congress provided less advance appropriations for use in the subsequent year ($4,158 million provided in FY2008 for use in FY2009) than was provided in the prior year ($4,193 million provided in FY2007 for use in FY2008). As a result, the new budget authority authorized in FY2008 ($16,931 million) is less than the budget authority newly available in FY2008 ($16,426 million). (See the FY2008 column of Table 4 .)