On December 16, 2014, the President signed into law the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of FY2015 ( P.L. 113-235 ), which included $3.066 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program and a $500 million loan commitment ceiling for the CDBG Section 108 loan guarantee program. The CDF account administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) includes the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), and Section 108 loan guarantees. In addition, the CDF account has in the past included funding for Section 4 capacity building grants and the Administration's Sustainable Communities Initiatives, as well as other initiatives in support of the formula-based CDBG program. The CDBG program is the federal government's largest and most widely available source of financial assistance supporting state and local government-directed neighborhood revitalization, housing rehabilitation, and economic development activities. These formula-based grants are allocated to approximately 1,183 entitlement communities (metropolitan cities with populations of 50,000, principal cities of metropolitan areas, and urban counties); the 50 states; Puerto Rico; and the insular areas of American Samoa, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Grants are used to implement plans intended to address housing, community development, and economic development needs, as determined by local officials. The Obama Administration's budget request for FY2015 included $2.870 billion for activities funded under HUD's CDF account. The requested amount represented 6.1% of the $46.7 billion in budget authority requested by the agency for FY2015. The Administration's FY2015 budget proposal would decrease total funding for CDF activities by $230 million from $3.100 billion in FY2014 to $2.870 billion. The proposed budget would decrease total funding for the CDF account and the CDBG formula grants by 7.6%, reducing funding for CDBG formula grants from $3.030 billion appropriated in FY2014 to $2.800 billion. The remaining $70 million requested by the Administration would be used to fund competitively awarded CDBG funds to Indian tribes. The budget proposal also requests funding, under separate HUD accounts, for Section 4 capacity building, Integrated Planning and Investment Grants (a component of the Administration's previously funded Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI)), and Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) activities under its Project Rebuild proposal. These activities were previously funded under the CDF account. Under the Administration's FY2015 budget proposal funding for the CDBG formula grants would have declined by $230 million from the amounts appropriated for FY2014. For FY2015, the Administration requested $2.800 billion for the CDBG formula component of the CDF account, including $1.955 billion for CDBG entitlement communities; $838 million for CDBG state administered program; and $7 million for insular areas. This was approximately 7.6% less than the amount appropriated for FY2014. The Administration also requested $70 million for Indian tribes, which was the same amount appropriated in FY2014. The Administration, when releasing its FY2015 budget request, noted that it planned to propose revisions and reforms to the program. According to the Administration's budget documents This legislative package will focus on reforms that strengthen the CDBG program; help grantees target funding resources to areas of greatest need; enhance program accountability; synchronize critical program cycles with the consolidated plan cycle; reduce the number of small grantees; and provide more options for regional coordination, administration, and planning. Regional coordination will allow grantees to achieve administrative savings and pool resources to make strategic investment decisions. The Administration, when submitting its FY2015 budget request, also identified proposed reforms to the program, including reducing the number of small grantees and reforming the program's allocation formula, but did not submit formal proposals. The Administration's FY2015 budget recommended $75 million in funding for Regional Integrated Planning and Investment Grants (RIPIG), a component of the Administration's Sustainable Communities Initiatives (SCI). For FY2015 the Administration requested an appropriation of $75 million to fund RIPIGs. This was the same amount requested, but not funded, in the FY2014 appropriations cycle. Although proposed as a freestanding program, program activities were previously funded under the CDF account. If funded, RIPIGs would have been competitively awarded to states, counties, metropolitan regions, and cities to support metropolitan-wide housing, transportation, economic development, energy, and land use planning. This was envisioned as a multi-agency initiative involving the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal agencies. The Administration did not submit a formal proposal or fully articulate how RIPIGs differed from previous Administration proposals that had been rejected by Congress. The Administration again proposed the creation of Project Rebuild, a $15 billion program that would build upon the success of the Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative, created by Congress to assist the most impacted communities affected by the mortgage foreclosure crisis acquire, rehabilitate, demolish, and resell abandoned and foreclosed residential properties. The Administration proposed expanding the program to include commercial properties. Funds would have been allocated by formula to states and local governments and also would have been awarded competitively to states and local governments working collaboratively with non-profit and for-profit partners. The CDBG Section 108 Loan Guarantee program (Section 108) allows states and entitlement communities to borrow up to five times their annual allocation for a term of 20 years through the public issuance of bonds to support large-scale economic development and housing projects. The Administration's budget proposed a loan commitment ceiling of $500 million in FY2015. FY2015 marked the first year the program charged a fee to access the program rather than provide a credit subsidy. The fee-based requirement to access the program, which was first floated by the Administration in its FY2010 budget request, was not approved by Congress until the FY2014 appropriations. On February 5, 2015, HUD published two notices regarding the Section 108 fees in the Federal Register . The first of the two established a fee of 2.42% of the principal obligation of the loan, which will be applied to Section 108 loan disbursements during FY2015. The fee will be charged after available credit subsidies have been depleted. The second notice included proposed rules that would govern the levying of fees when appropriations for credit subsidies are not available or insufficient in future years. The department set March 9, 2015, as the due date for comments on the proposed regulation. On June 10, 2014, the House approved H.R. 4745 , the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Bill for FY2015 (THUD). The House-passed bill ( H.R. 4745 ) recommended $3.060 billion for activities funded under the CDF account, including $3.0 billion for CDBG formula grants awarded to states, entitlement communities, and insular areas. This was $30 million (1%) less than the $3.030 billion appropriated in FY2014 for formula grants, $200 million (7%) more than requested by the Administration and $20 million (0.7%) less than recommended by the Senate bill, S. 2438 . The bill would have appropriated $10 million less than the $70 million recommended by the Senate bill and requested by the Administration for Indian tribes. During floor consideration of the bill, the House approved an amendment ( H.Amdt. 828 ) that would have prohibited HUD from terminating the CDBG entitlement status of any community. The provision was an effort to protect the entitlement status of communities that may no longer meet statutory requirements for a direct formula-based allocation since it is anticipated that the Administration will seek statutory changes in the program eligibility requirements that would have the net effect of reducing the number of entitlement communities. H.R. 4745 did not include funds to support a new round of funding for Integrated Planning Grant activities. The House bill did include language supporting the conversion of Section 108 loan guarantees to a fee-based structure and recommended a loan guarantee ceiling of $500 million. The bill would have funded Section 4 (Capacity Building for Community Development and Affordable Housing) under a separate, stand-alone account and not as a component of the CDF account, or its current account, the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program account. On June 5, 2014, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported its version of the THUD Appropriations Bill for FY2015, S. 2438 . The Senate Committee-passed bill ( S. 2438 ) recommended $3.090 billion for activities funded under the CDF account, including $3.020 billion for CDBG formula grants awarded to states, entitlement communities, and insular areas. This was $10 million less than the $3.030 billion appropriated in FY2014 for formula grants and $220 million more than requested by the Administration. S. 2438 supported the Administration's $70 million funding request for Indian tribes, including a set-aside of $10 million in grant funds for mold remediation and prevention in Indian housing. The bill also supported a loan commitment ceiling of $500 million for the Section 108 loan guarantee program and recommended continued funding of Section 4 (Capacity Building for Community Development and Affordable Housing) activities at the $35 million appropriation level. The bill did not support the Administration's request to transfer the Section 4 program from its current account, the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program account, to a new stand-alone account; nor did the bill recommend funding the Administration's Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative proposal. The bill included a provision that would have prohibited a community from exchanging or transferring its CDBG allocation to another community in exchange for non-CDBG funds.