WASHINGTON -- The housing reauthorization biB, which was speeding through ConFess just a couple of months ago, is now in danger of not being enacted this year, housing proponents said last week.
Thoie sources said the situation is far from hopeless, and they will be pushing to make sure the bill is at the top of lawmakers' agendas when they return from recess on Sept. 12. But the bill's failure to pass the Senate before the recess began and the short amount of time left before an expected October adjournment make the chances for passage uncertain.
"With the limited time left in the schedule, all legislation that's not moving expeditiously is of concern," said Reggie Todd, the chief lobbyist for the National Association of Counties.
The gridlock in the Senate that developed in August over health care reform legislation "didn't do much for the housing bill," said a housing lobbyist who requested anonymity. Failure to get Senate passage before September "makes it a straggle" to complete work on the bill in the few weeks remaining in the session, he added.
The legislation would reauthorize dozens of federal programs set to expire Sept. 30, including several important to the municipal market, such as the HOME program and the Community Development Block Grant program. The bill would also renew the risk-sharing pilot program, which is testing the idea of allowing state and local housing agencies to share the risk of insuring multifamily loans with the Federal Housing Administration.
If Congress fails to pass the reauthorization bill, the programs would not stop functioning, because they would continue to be funded under separate appropriations legislation.
But the reauthorization measure contains new programs and changes to existing programs that could not be implemented without its passage.
For example, the House version of the bill would revamp the Section 8 rent subsidy program in a way that is expected to give participating multifamily housing project owners a more reliable stream of payments and thus a better credit rating on their tax-exempt debt.
The House bill would also raise the size of multifamily mortgages that the Federal Housing Administration could insure in cities with high housing costs, enabling the cities to move forward with bond-financed projects that have been stalled by the limit.
Back in June, the legislation seemed well on its way to enactment. The House and Senate banking committees passed their respective versions that month, and House passage came on July 25. At that point, congressional housing aides were talking about the possibility of Senate passage and a House-Senate conference completing work before the beginning of the summer recess in August.
But the Senate, embroiled in an extended debate over health care reform, never took up the housing bill. Now Senate passage and the House-Senate conference to reconcile differences will have to be sandwiched in between Sept. 12 and the expected end of the session in mid-October.
Congress, in fact, has set a tentative adjournment date of Oct. 7. Lawmakers have often chosen to stay in session well beyond the target date, even in election years. But this year may be an exception because House and Senate leaders cut the August recess short in a failed attempt to move health care reform forward, lobbyists said.
"There's just enormous pressure to get home and campaign, particularly since they gave up two weeks of their August recess," said a municipal lobbyist.
Even with such a tight schedule, the lobbyist said passage of the housing bill "is not out of the question. All it suggests is that those who want to see a bill face substantial obstacles, and it will require 'the lobbying to be raised to -the next level of intensity if they expect to get this to break through what will otherwise be a very significant logjam of legislation."
One bright spot for the housing bill is the reCent decision by congressional leaders not to continue pushing for a major health care bill this year.
"Now that the health care bill seems to be dead; that gives us a lot more hope" said Denise Muha, the executive director of the National Leased Housing ASsociation. "If they were still trying to get health care passed I would have written this bill off."
