The House and Senate Appropriations Committees will release and vote on FY17 subcommittee spending amounts, formally known as 302(b) allocations, on April 13 and 14, respectively. Subcommittees began receiving provisional numbers last week. The amounts allocated to the Appropriations Subcommittees for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) and Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies will set the topline amount each subcommittee can use as they write their FY17 spending bills.
In March, the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding (CHCDF) sent a letter signed by more than 2,000 national, state and local organizations to Senate and House Appropriations Committee Chairs and Ranking Members urging them to increase the 302(b) funding allocation for the THUD Subcommittees for FY17. (see Memo, 3/7).
House Appropriators are moving forward with voting in Subcommittees on several spending bills this week, with a goal of moving all spending bills through regular order on the House floor. The House THUD bill has not yet been scheduled for Subcommittee consideration.
House Republican leadership may face difficulty getting the votes necessary to pass the bills through the House, however, given strong opposition to the topline spending levels among fiscal conservatives. The House Budget Committee approved a budget resolution (see Memo, 3/21) that would allow for the higher discretionary level agreed to in last year’s budget agreement if an equivalent amount of entitlement spending is cut. However, House conservatives have concerns that the Budget language does not provide assurance that such cuts to entitlement spending will be enacted. To assuage such concerns, the House Rules Committee may vote this week to allow cuts to entitlement programs to be achieved through the appropriations process, rather than through separate authorizing legislation.