Contents

• FY2020 Budget Process
• FY2020 THUD Appropriations Process
• President's Budget
• House Action
• Senate Action
• Continuing Resolutions
• Final FY2020 Full-Year Appropriations Law
• CARES Act Pandemic Relief Funding
• Department of Transportation
• Selected DOT Issues
• Infrastructure Funding
• Commercial Truck Safety
• Rail Infrastructure
• Automobile Fuel Economy Standards
• CARES Act Supplemental Funding
• Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Selected HUD Issues
• Grant Program Funding
• Rental Assistance Funding
• Account Restructuring
• Policy Provisions
• CARES Act Funding
• THUD Independent Agencies
• Selected Independent Agencies Issues
• NeighborWorks America
• USICH

The respective House and Senate Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) appropriations subcommittees are charged with providing annual appropriations for the Department of Transportation (DOT), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and certain related agencies. This report describes action on FY2020 annual appropriations for THUD, including detailed tables for each major agency, and including the effect of the CARES supplemental appropriations act, signed into law on March 27, 2020, on DOT and HUD budget authority.

FY2020 Budget Process

Appropriations for DOT, HUD, and the related agencies typically funded in the THUD bill happen in the context of the broader annual congressional appropriations process. That process generally begins with the submission of the President's budget request and the adoption of the congressional budget resolution that sets the overall level of spending for that year's appropriations bills. For FY2020, the first step was delayed.

The President's budget submission for FY2020 was submitted on March 11, 2019, about five weeks after the statutory deadline. The delay was, in part, attributable to extended negotiations over a number of the FY2019 annual appropriations bills (including THUD), during which there was a five-week government shutdown. Ultimately, appropriations for these annual bills were enacted on February 15, 2019, completing FY2019 annual appropriations almost five months after the start of FY2019.

The annual adoption of a congressional budget resolution by its target date of April 15 is meant to provide an opportunity for Congress to consider and agree on an overall budget framework for that year's appropriations bills. For FY2020, the House and Senate did not agree to a formal budget resolution.

In the absence of agreement on a budget resolution, on April 9, 2019, the House adopted a deeming resolution for FY2020 (H.Res. 293), which gave the House Appropriations Committee a top-line spending allocation of approximately $1.295 trillion for FY2020. The subcommittee-level 302(b) allocations were revised on June 21, 2019 (H.Rept. 116-124), and included $75.771 billion for THUD.¹

In August 2019, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 (BBA 2019; P.L. 116-37) was enacted. The BBA 2019 set the overall FY2020 statutory spending limit at $1.288 trillion. It set the nondefense spending limit (the limit applicable to THUD funding) at $621.5 billion, an increase of $24.5 billion (+4%) relative to FY2019.

On September 9, 2019, the Senate Committee on the Budget published in the Congressional Record its top-line spending allocation of $1.288 trillion for FY2020. On September 26, 2019, in S.Rept. 116-122, the Senate Appropriations Committee published its 302(b) allocations, including $74.3 billion for THUD, subsequently revised to $74.277 billion in S.Rept. 116-207.

FY2020 THUD Appropriations Process

President's Budget

The Administration's budget request proposed cutting funding for THUD agencies by 8.6% ($11.3 billion) from their FY2019 levels. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) would have been reduced by 17% (-$7.6 billion), DOT by 4% (-$3.6 billion), and the independent agencies in Title III of the THUD bill by 35% (-$127 million) (see Table 1). The reductions in HUD funding would have come from zeroing out a half-dozen programs, the largest of which was the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, and reducing funding for many more programs. The reductions in DOT funding would have come primarily from reducing funding for highways, new transit lines, and Amtrak. Two independent agencies, the Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, are also proposed for significant reductions in the President's Budget request.

House Action

The House Committee on Appropriations reported out H.R. 3163, the THUD FY2020 Appropriations Act, on June 6, 2019 (H.Rept. 116-106). The committee recommended a 6.6% ($4.7 billion) increase in discretionary funding over the comparable FY2019 figure, with most of the increase going to HUD (see Table 1), though that increase was partially offset by a reduction in offsetting receipts from HUD's mortgage insurance programs.

On June 19, 2019, the House Rules Committee approved a rule amending H.R. 3055 by adding the texts of several other appropriations bills, including the FY2020 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Other Independent Agencies (THUD) appropriations (as reported in H.R. 3163) as Division E. That consolidated appropriations bill was passed by the House on June 25, 2019. A number of THUD-related amendments were adopted.

Senate Action

The Senate Committee on Appropriations ordered reported S. 2520, its version of the THUD FY2020 Appropriations Act, on September 19, 2019. The committee recommended a 4.5% ($3.2 billion) increase in discretionary funding over the comparable FY2019 figure. As with the House bill, most of the increase was directed to HUD (see Table 1), though that increase was partially offset by a reduction in offsetting receipts from HUD's mortgage insurance programs.

On October 31, 2019, the Senate passed S.Amdt. 948, the Senate amendment to H.R. 3055, which contained the text of the Senate committee-reported THUD as well as the text of three other appropriations acts. While several THUD-related floor amendments were adopted, none changed funding at the account, agency, or title levels.

Continuing Resolutions

In advance of the start of FY2020 on October 1, 2019, Congress approved and the President signed a short-term continuing resolution (P.L. 116-59). It largely continued funding for all government agencies, including those typically funded in the THUD appropriations bill, at FY2019 levels through November 21, 2019. That continuing resolution was extended through December 20, 2019, by P.L. 116-69, the FY2020 Continuing Appropriations Act. That law also repealed a $7.6 billion rescission of states' unobligated balances of federal highway funding that was scheduled to occur in the fourth quarter of FY2020.

Final FY2020 Full-Year Appropriations Law

Final full-year FY2020 funding for THUD was provided in Division H of the FY2020 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 116-94), signed into law on December 20, 2019. The law provided a 4% increase in discretionary funding for THUD agencies relative to FY2019 overall, with increased funding for HUD (+11%), but decreased funding for DOT (-6%).

CARES Act Pandemic Relief Funding

Following the declaration of a public health emergency related to the global pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Congress enacted a series of supplemental appropriations and relief measures in the spring of FY2020. Division B of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act; P.L. 116-136) included $36.1 billion in additional FY2020 discretionary appropriations for DOT accounts and $12.4 billion appropriations for HUD accounts. The law designated these funds as being for an emergency requirement, meaning they do not count toward enforceable spending limits under the Budget Control Act, as amended.

Department of Transportation

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees recommended identical levels of overall funding ($86.65 billion) for DOT, which was virtually level (an increase of $167 million) with the comparable FY2019 enacted amount. The final FY2020 enacted amount was $86.156 billion, less than 1% ($325 million) below the FY2019 enacted level. Most accounts received an increase; the accounts that bore the brunt of the decrease were the additional discretionary funding (above the authorized level) for the Federal Highway Administration, which was reduced by 33% ($1,084 million), from $3,250 million (FY2019) to $2,166 million (FY2020), and the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Grants (New Starts) account, which was reduced by 23% ($575 million), from $2,553 million (FY2019) to $1,978 million (FY2020), $324 million below its authorized level. The details of the recommended and enacted funding can be found in Table 2.

In April 2020 the CARES Act (P.L. 116-136) provided an additional $36.1 billion in FY2020 funding to several DOT programs and activities for assistance with the economic costs of the pandemic; see Table 3 for details.

Selected DOT Issues

Infrastructure Funding

Both the House and Senate appropriations bills would have provided increases beyond the authorized levels of infrastructure funding in several modes. Both would have provided $1 billion for the BUILD competitive grant program (not an authorized program); $500 million (House) and $450 million (Senate) for additional discretionary grants to airports (in addition to the $3.35 billion authorized); $1.75 billion (House) and $2.7 billion (Senate) for highway programs (in addition to the $47 billion authorized amount); and $750 million (House) and $560 million (Senate) for additional transit infrastructure grants (in addition to the $12.5 billion authorized level). The final appropriations bill provided $4.0 billion beyond authorized levels for infrastructure: $1 billion for the BUILD program, $400 million for additional airport grants, $2.166 billion for additional highway grants, $510 million for additional transit grants (though this increase was partially reduced by $324 million from the authorized level of the transit Capital Investment Grants program), plus $225 million for port infrastructure grants.

Commercial Truck Safety

The congressional mandate for heavy trucks to be equipped with electronic logging devices (ELDs) to track the time worked by drivers went into effect at the end of 2017.² The purpose was to improve safety by reducing violations of the federal hours-of-service limits (which limit the amount of time a driver can drive each day and each week to reduce the risk of truckers driving while fatigued). The limits were not changed when ELDs became mandatory; ELDs just make it harder for drivers to exceed the limits without detection. However, objections from certain sectors of the trucking industry have led Congress and the President to repeatedly waive enforcement of the ELD mandate with respect to livestock haulers, and to consider amending the hours-of-service rules to provide more flexibility to drivers. These steps have been opposed by safety advocates. The House and Senate bills both included a provision that would extend the waiver for livestock haulers to the end of FY2020; this was included in the enacted appropriations bill.³

Rail Infrastructure

The final appropriations bill funded Amtrak at $200 million above its authorized level, providing $700 million for the Northeast Corridor and $1.3 billion for the National Network. It also provides a total of $529 million for rail infrastructure grants, $141 million less than FY2019 and $121 million less than the authorized level. The Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements program received a $75 million increase over FY2019, to $325 million, while the Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair was cut by 50%, from $400 million (FY2019) to $200 million (FY2020). Magnetic levitation program funding was reduced from $10 million (FY2019) to $2 million (FY2020).

Amtrak's Hudson Tunnel Replacement Project

Some of the rail infrastructure funding could potentially go to Amtrak's Hudson Tunnel Replacement Project, a project previously cited as critical by DOT but for which funding has been a source of contention between the Trump Administration and the States of New York and New Jersey.

California High Speed Rail Project

The Administration announced in February 2019 that it would cancel the remaining $929 million in federal funding provided for the California High Speed Rail Project after California's new governor announced that the project would be scaled back. The House bill would have barred DOT from canceling the funding, or from reallocating the money until any litigation concerning the funding is completed;⁴ the Senate bill did not have a similar provision, nor did the final enacted appropriations bill.

RRIF Loans and Economic Development Projects

In the FAST Act, uses for Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing loans had been expanded to include economic development projects related to rail service.⁵ That provision had been scheduled to expire after four years (December 2019); it was extended to the end of FY2020 in the final appropriations bill.⁶

Automobile Fuel Economy Standards

The House bill would have barred the use of any DOT funding to suspend the higher corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards that were scheduled to go into effect applying to model year 2022-2025 vehicles;⁷ the Senate bill did not have a similar provision, nor did the final enacted appropriations bill.

CARES Act Supplemental Funding

Division B, Title 12 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act; P.L. 116-136) provided $36.1 billion in additional FY2020 funding for several DOT programs and activities.⁸

Department of Housing and Urban Development

As shown in Table 4, the President's FY2020 budget requested a reduction of 18% relative to FY2019 in gross appropriations available for programs and activities. Conversely, the House bill proposed to provide an increase of 6.9% in gross appropriations for HUD in FY2020 relative to FY2019, and the Senate bill proposed an increase of 4.2%. The full-year FY2020 appropriations law increased gross appropriations for HUD's programs and activities by 5%.

Subsequent to enactment of the full-year regular appropriations law, the CARES Act (P.L. 116-136) provided an additional $12.4 billion in FY2020 funding to HUD programs and activities for pandemic relief purposes.

Selected HUD Issues

Grant Program Funding

The President's budget request for FY2020 again included a proposal to eliminate funding for several HUD grant programs that support various affordable housing and community development activities. Most notable among these are HUD's two largest block grant programs for states and localities, CDBG and HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME), as well as competitive grants funded in the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP) account (i.e., funding for sweat-equity programs, like Habitat for Humanity, and certain capacity-building programs). The HUD press release accompanying the budget request suggested that the activities funded by these grant programs should be devolved to the state and local levels.⁹

These grant programs were also slated for elimination in the President's FY2018 and FY2019 budget requests, although they were ultimately funded in each of those fiscal years. The House and Senate bills both included funding for each program, as did the final FY2020 appropriations law.

Rental Assistance Funding

Combined, HUD's rental assistance programs (tenant-based rental assistance, public housing, project-based rental assistance, and the Section 202 and Section 811 programs) serve roughly 4.7 million low-income individuals and families. Through the various programs, the federal government provides subsidies to allow families to pay low, income-based rents, generally set at 30% of a family's adjusted income.

The HUD press release accompanying the budget requests contended that the requested funding for the various rental assistance programs would be sufficient to continue to serve all currently assisted households.¹⁰ However, the President's budget documents assumed adoption of a set of rent reforms designed to increase tenant rents and therefore reduce federal subsidies that were proposed in 2018 but have seen no legislative action in Congress.¹¹ Like the House and Senate bills, the final FY2020 appropriations law did not adopt the proposed rent reforms, and instead provided increased funding for each of these programs.

Account Restructuring

Both the House and Senate bills proposed account restructurings that were adopted in the final FY2020 appropriations law. Specifically, programs previously funded as set-asides in other accounts or in stand-alone accounts were moved into two new accounts: the Self Sufficiency Programs account and the Native American Programs account. These changes make it more complicated to compare year-to-year totals across affected accounts and programs. Table 5 below provides a crosswalk of comparable numbers for comparison purposes.

Policy Provisions

The House bill includes a number of new General Provisions to block HUD's implementation of various administrative actions that have been considered controversial.

• Section 234 would block HUD's implementation of a proposed rule to restrict the eligibility of certain families composed of members with varied immigration statuses from receiving housing assistance.¹²
• Section 236 would block HUD from revising or repealing HUD rules related to equal access to housing based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
• Section 237 would codify other HUD guidance related to transgender persons' access to emergency shelters in accordance with gender identity.
• Section 238 would prevent HUD from altering its Annual Contributions Contracts (ACC) with PHAs used in the public housing program without going through a notice-and-rulemaking process.

The Senate bill did not include most of the provisions in the House bill, but did include several of its own new provisions.

• Section 233, like Section 238 in the House bill, would block HUD's implementation of a ACCs unless mutually agreed upon with PHAs, but would not require notice and comment rulemaking.
• Section 236 would provide additional funding flexibilities to Moving to Work agencies.
• Section 237 would prohibit HUD from restricting Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) under federal receivership or monitoring from applying for lead hazard grant funding.

The full-year FY2020 appropriations law did not adopt most of the new provisions proposed in either of the House or Senate bill, but did include

• Section 235, which, like Section 233 in the Senate bill and similar to Section 238 in the House bill, limits HUD's ability to implement new ACCs without mutual agreement by PHAs; and
• Section 239, which, like Section 237 in the Senate bill, prevents HUD from restricting access to lead-based paint remediation funding for PHAs under receivership or a federal monitor.

CARES Act Funding

Division B of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act; P.L. 116-136) provided $12.4 billion in additional FY2020 funding for several HUD programs and activities. The funds provided by the law are generally for one of three broad purposes: to provide additional resources to meet emerging needs, to support existing rental assistance programs, or to provide additional administrative capacity and oversight. Three-quarters of the funding can be considered new resources to meet emerging needs, with most of the remaining funding supporting rental assistance programs. For more information on these funds and their use, see CRS Insight IN11319, Funding for HUD in the CARES Act.

THUD Independent Agencies

Selected Independent Agencies Issues

NeighborWorks America

As in FY2018 and FY2019, the President's FY2020 budget included a request for legislation to begin the process of winding down federal funding for the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation (commonly known as NeighborWorks America), which was created via federal charter in 1978 to support affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization nationwide. The requested funding level of $27 million was intended to cover personnel, administrative, and other costs associated with winding down existing commitments. The House, Senate, and final FY2020 appropriations law all rejected this proposal, and NeighborWorks was ultimately funded in FY2020 at an increased level relative to FY2019.

USICH

Similar to NeighborWorks, the President's FY2020 budget, as in the prior two years' budgets, requested legislation to begin the process of winding down the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), which was created in 1987 to coordinate across government agencies to reduce and end homelessness. The requested funding level was intended to cover salaries, benefits, and operational costs for permanently closing the agency. The USICH has a statutory sunset date—currently, October 1, 2028—that has generally been extended in annual appropriations acts. Congress did not adopt the President's request in the House, Senate, or final FY2020 appropriations law, instead providing increased funding for the USICH relative to FY2019 ($3.8 million in FY2020 compared to $3.6 million in FY2019).

Author Contact Information

Footnotes

1.	302(b) allocations refer to the division of the overall spending allocation among the appropriation subcommittees.
2.	Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, "Final Rule: Electronic Logging Devices," 80 FR 78292, December 16, 2015, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2015-12-16/pdf/2015-31336.pdf.
3.	Division H, Title I, §131 of P.L. 116-94.
4.	Title I, §192 of H.R. 3163.
5.	45 U.S.C. 822(b)(3).
6.	Division H, Title I, §192 of P.L. 116-94.
7.	Title I, §145 of H.R. 3163. See CRS In Focus IF10871, Vehicle Fuel Economy and Greenhouse Gas Standards, for more information.
8.	In addition to support for federal transportation programs, Congress also provided assistance to the airline industry in the CARES Act, including $32 billion to air carriers for support of employment and up to $46 billion in business loans and loan guarantees.
9.	HUD, "Trump Administration Proposes 2020 HUD Budget: Spending plan preserves rental subsidies; increases homeless assistance and healthy housing," press release, March 11, 2019, https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HUD_No_19_027.
10.	Ibid.
11.	See HUD FY2020 Congressional Budget Justifications, "Overview of Rental Assistance Programs," available at https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/CFO/documents/2020CJ-OverviewOfRentalAssistancePrograms.pdf.
12.	For more information, see CRS Insight IN11121, HUD's Proposal to End Assistance to Mixed Status Families.