Adobe Acrobat Reader is free software that lets you view and print Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Some links will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to view. Click here to download Adobe Acrobat Reader

For Immediate Release: October 6, 2005

Contact:	Steve Adamske, 202-225-7141

REP. FRANK FLOOR STATEMENT ON HURRICANE KATRINA EMERGENCY RELIEF CDBG FLEXIBILITY ACT OF 2005

(House of Representatives - October 6, 2005)

---

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.

   Mr. Speaker, once again, this is a bill that is broadly, probably unanimously, supported, or overwhelmingly; and it reflects a good deal of conversation. We appreciate the willingness of the Members on the majority side to come together. Obviously, there continue to be some differences between us on some policy issues; but in terms of responding to this emergency, those are not things that should get in the way. I think both sides showed a spirit of cooperation. The majority was very helpful, and we have legislation that can be widely supported.

   But, once again, the problem is what it does is good, but what it does not do is not so good. In particular in this case we ought to be substantially increasing the CDBG funding. Now, we are not the Committee on Appropriations. We do have an authorizing power.

   Giving the people the ability to spend on more things but not more money is better than nothing, but not nearly good enough. CDBG needs the kinds of things that CDBG does, both for the larger communities of 50,000 or more, called ``entitlement cities,'' but also what we should be doing here is providing to the Governors of the affected States funding which they could use in their CDBG programming, because they get one-third of it, for those communities that are in areas of less than 50,000 population, that is, they are the Small Communities Program, and we should be increasing the funding there. I hope at an appropriate time we will do that, because these communities are going to need a great deal of help.

   The CDBG program is one of the logical ways to do it. We know how to spend here. It is a program which has had virtually no scandal, to my knowledge. It is a program which works well, and simply expanding this existing funding mechanism would be one very good way to get money to people very quickly in ways they know how to spend.

   But I also should note, as the gentlewoman from California noted, I guess in some ways those of us who have been advocates of an active government role in the housing and community development areas can feel somewhat more supported today than we often are on this floor, because we have now had three bills in a row which take advantage of the existence of federally funded programs which have a lot of critics around here.

   We have had proposals from the administration this year, from HUD, to dismantle in their existing form both the voucher program and the CDBG program. There was a proposal to block grant the voucher program. Block granting, by the way is what people do to programs they do not like. I have been here a long time. Nobody in my memory has ever proposed block granting a Federal program which he or she supported.

   What we had basically was an effort to cut back on the voucher program. What we are doing now is taking the concept of the voucher program and greatly expanding it, through FEMA funding; but, yes, it is a voucher program that has not only proven its worth but is a lifeline at a time when we need one. It would have been a bad thing if we would have had to invent such a program right now because of all the startup problems you would have.

   Similarly, as the gentlewoman from California pointed out, this administration proposed the most hair-brained reorganization of the Community Development Block Grant program imaginable. They took the Community Development Block Grant, which aids communities, they took the Community Services Block Grant, which deals with poverty, they took the Community Development Financial Institutions, which deals with economic development in cities, and decided to put them all in the Commerce Department.

   CDBG and CSBG have a particular impact on poverty. I think what happened was they had a contest over there in the administration, maybe one of those lotteries they have when they try to help 1 percent of the people that need housing, and they decided to find the Federal Department that had the least orientation towards helping poor people, so they could take these programs that help poor people and give it to that Department.

   So we took it out of HUD, and we took it out of the Health and Human Services Department, and they took programs out of Labor, and they sent them to the Department of Commerce, I think on the grounds that the Department of Commerce really did not know enough about poverty, and this is a way for them to learn. I am all for educating people, but not by giving them Federal programs as their blocks.

   So what we have today is an affirmation in this bill of the importance of the Community Development Block Grant program as a proven mechanism for getting aid out.

   Again, I want to say, and I suppose this will cause a little friction, maybe some people will have to disassociate themselves, but I do appreciate the difference between the members of our committee on the majority side in their approach to these things and the administration. Unlike the administration, which had as its intention dismantling these things, and we, I think were not going to act on that, we are here trying to build on them.

   Of course, there is always room for improvement. We have been having some conversations about how to improve the voucher program, how to streamline it, how to make it more efficient. But substantially diminishing it would have been a mistake. So I am very pleased.

   Of course, that was also the case with rural housing, because one of the things I hope we will do in the near future, in the next few months, this year or next year, is to go to the rural housing program and take some steps that will preserve that as a source of affordable housing.

   There are trends and various complications that we do not need to go into here now, which, if not confronted, we could lose that housing. So we have a recognition today of the importance of the concept of the voucher program. We have a recognition of the importance of the Community Development Block Grant mechanism in delivering services with Federal funding. We have a recognition of the importance of preserving and using that rural housing stock. I hope all of those will go forward.

   Finally, Mr. Speaker, I do want to repeat again, these steps are useful. They leave us with a lot to do. The problem is that the Bush administration at this point has zero proposals that will respond to the longer-term needs of these affected communities. I am told these proposals are coming, and I do not doubt some of my colleagues will be coming forward with them.

   But we did have a speech from the President of the United States in which he outlined his plans; and the one I looked at very closely was his housing plan, his housing plan consisting of an effort to find existing Federal properties that the Federal Government does not want or need and have a lottery, so a very small percentage, 1 or 2 percent of the people in need, can get Federal property and zero dollars from any source that we control to help make them into housing. And that, let us be clear, that is the sum total of the President's proposal for the longer term. It is wholly inadequate.

   We have made a step here today. I look forward to our being back on this floor in coming months to talk about a broader set of proposals for community development, for housing and for other things; and I hope at the time we will keep in mind the importance of building on and improving these existing programs and continue to reject the kind of radical dismantling that the administration has proposed, and instead to try and have their return to the 19th century with the concept of homesteading, which is inappropriate, inadequate, and ill thought out.

 

###

The Committee oversees all components of the nation's housing and financial services sectors including banking, insurance, real estate, public and assisted housing, and securities. The Committee continually reviews the laws and programs relating to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and international development and finance agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The Committee also ensures enforcement of housing and consumer protection laws such as the U.S. Housing Act, the Truth In Lending Act, the Housing and Community Development Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, and financial privacy laws.