- Key insight: The NDAA is one of Congress' few must-pass measures, and has always attracted a raft of financial and other policy-realm riders.
- What's at stake: The housing package would cut red tape for housing construction and let state and local governments use government funds to promote housing supply.
- Forward look: House banking committee Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., said that the committee will consider its own housing-related policy measures.
WASHINGTON — The Senate-passed housing package isn't included in the House of Representatives' version of the defense spending bill, a major blow to efforts to pass the housing policies this year.
The National Defense Authorization Act is one of Congress' few must-pass measures, and has always attracted a raft of financial and other policy-realm riders. This year has been p
House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., however, has thrown up obstacles to this effort, saying that he wants his committee to have its own say in any kind of housing legislation.
Hill's insistence on dropping the housing provisions counters the White House's support for the Senate bill and its inclusion in NDAA.
"I share the president's goals of expanding Americans' access to housing that fits their needs by reducing regulatory roadblocks to development, increasing housing supply and choice, and strengthening accountability," Hill said in a statement Sunday evening. "It is critical that we deliver real solutions that empower Americans and strengthen communities. This month, the Financial Services Committee will advance solutions to tackle housing cost and access challenges for American families, homeowners, and renters. Next year, we look forward to working with our Senate colleagues to send a bill to the president's desk that reflects the views of both chambers and leads to more affordable choices for America's homeowners and renters."
The housing package will come up in the remaining weeks of the year, and could be picked up in 2026, especially as Republicans look toward midterm elections, which they expect to center around affordability.
Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, will try to use the lack of any housing bills as a cudgel against the GOP in 2026.
"Donald Trump claims he wants to build more housing and lower housing costs, but his allies in the House just axed a bipartisan bill that unanimously passed the Senate to do just that," Warren said in a statement. "The fight to get the ROAD to Housing Act signed into law isn't over – but if House Republicans continue to block legislation to cut housing costs in 2026, then Democrats will pass it ourselves when we take back Congress."
Bankers
"This really does leverage a lot of programs, and if you can get to a point of consensus between the House and the Senate to get something to the White House, it really could have the potential impact of helping to encourage greater interest on the part of depositories to participate in the mortgage marketplace," Bill Killmer, the Mortgage Bankers Association's chief lobbyist, told American Banker last week.
Lawmakers also dropped a separate measure that would ban the Federal Reserve from creating a Central Bank Digital Currency. That provision would be mostly symbolic, as it's not something that the Fed is exploring, but it could throw up obstacles to forthcoming market structure legislation.
A group of right-wing Republican lawmakers tried to insert the CBDC language into the stablecoin legislation that passed earlier this year. When they agreed to take it out to make sure that the GENIUS stablecoin bill passed with enough Democratic support, House leadership promised them that it would be in the NDAA.
Now that House lawmakers won't get to vote on CBDCs in the NDAA, those right-wing Republicans are likely to insist that the measure be included in the market structure bill, which would pry away Democratic support.
