By Mark Schoeff Jr. | CQ-Roll Call
Senate and House leaders agreed Tuesday to a final version of comprehensive housing legislation that they believe will pass the Senate this week and the House next week, landing on the president’s desk for his expected signature.
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The deal puts the chambers within reach of concluding almost a year of work on a major package that aims to increase housing supply and decrease costs for the living expense that often ranks at the top of voters’ affordability concerns.
The Senate took the first step toward advancing the final housing measure by voting to bring the bill up for debate on Tuesday afternoon. The 87-8 vote presages similar bipartisan backing on passage later this week.
The House would have to pass the bill next week to clear it for President Donald Trump’s signature, which also seems like a forgone conclusion given the involvement and backing from the bicameral, bipartisan leadership of the two financial services committees, and their respective party leadership.
The legislation contains nearly four dozen provisions based on stand-alone measures, most of which have bipartisan co-sponsors. They would streamline housing regulations to bolster the construction of affordable housing, change rules to increase manufactured housing and encourage localities to ease zoning rules, among other changes.
Give and take
The bill represents an agreement between Senate Banking Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., Banking ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., House Financial Services Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., and that panel’s ranking member Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
Hill initially resisted the latest Senate version of the bill, saying it made changes that jeopardized House support. Hill said after negotiations concluded on Tuesday that his concerns had been addressed.
In a statement, Hill said the tweaked version of the Senate bill includes several provisions he sought in the final bargaining, including a three-year sunset on the Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery program. It also incorporates nine provisions to ease community banking regulations — a Hill priority he ties to housing construction loans — and maintains the House’s changes to a provision that would curb the ability of large investors to buy single-family homes.
During the final negotiations, Hill requested that a seven-year sunset on disaster relief be reduced to three years, according to a Senate aide.
“Bipartisan, bicameral legislating is never easy — but progress matters,” Hill said. “This bill is a meaningful step toward increasing housing supply, improving affordability, and helping more Americans achieve homeownership. I look forward to President Trump signing it into law.”
Lawmakers also agreed to Waters’ requests to adjust a provision that encourages localities to build more homes by linking CBDG funding to housing growth and to tweak a provision on a rental assistance demonstration project, according to the Senate aide.
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The measure preserves the House version of language that would put a moratorium on the Federal Reserve’s ability to create a digital currency until Dec. 31, 2030, with language clarifying that the Fed could not do so without the express authority of Congress.
Some GOP conservatives sought a permanent ban, but Republicans lost only 13 votes on passage of that version last month, not nearly enough to derail the broader package, which passed the House 396-13.
‘Year of affordability’
“This landmark bill will boost housing supply, bring down costs, and — for the first time ever — stop private equity from buying up single-family homes,” Warren said on the floor before Tuesday’s vote. “So, here we are, in a moment when the United States Senate and the House of Representatives may actually get something done, get it over to the president’s desk, and it’s something that’s good for the American people.”
The bill is a centerpiece in the “year of affordability,” Scott said in a statement, calling it “the result of years of hard work to lower costs, expand housing supply, cut red tape, protect taxpayers, and help more Americans achieve the dream of homeownership.”
The revised Senate version keeps much of what both chambers have previously passed.
It adds back some provisions the House dropped from the earlier Senate version, keeps some items the House added but not others, and contains a modified version of the president’s key demand: a ban on bulk ownership of single-family homes by large institutional investors.
The earlier House bill differed from the Senate version by refusing to cap the time some institutional investors can hold properties they build to rent. The previous Senate version would have required them to sell the properties within seven years or pay a penalty. Both chambers define institutional investors as those holding 350 or more homes.
“There’s a lot of good in there,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters before the vote. “Both parties have had opportunities to weigh into this. In the end, it’s about increasing the supply of housing in this country and making it more affordable, and I think that is something the American people want to see us working on. I think this bill accomplishes that.”
Thune filed cloture on the revised version after the successful motion to proceed vote, setting up a 60-vote hurdle prior to final passage.
The Senate Banking Committee approved the first version of the Senate housing bill last July. The House initially passed its bill in February, 390-9. The Senate passed an amended version the next month, 89-10. The House then countered with the revised version that passed overwhelmingly in May.
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