(Another) Appropriations Round-Up: What the Senate Said

by Sarah Goodwin

If you read our last blog on appropriations in July, you know that when we left off, the House had passed several appropriations bills through committee and that the next step was for the Senate to release their own versions. As last month came to a close, they did just that, putting all bills through the Senate Appropriations Committee before leaving for the August recess.

We’ll see Congress return to session briefly in September before departing again for the final stretches of this fall’s campaign season, but in the meantime, we’re reporting back now that we can see the House and Senate bills side by side. As explained in the previous blog, we are not likely to see final FY25 numbers enacted into law until after the fiscal year starts, but doing this analysis of the proposed bills can be helpful for two reasons. First, while I never like to try to predict anything about Congress or federal policymaking with 100% confidence, the House and Senate numbers can offer insights on where we might see the final numbers land. Second, seeing what the committees chose to include (and exclude) tells us their priorities and interests and can inform plans for the next appropriations cycle—and, while it may feel odd to think so while we’re still mired in negotiations around FY25, congressional offices will start figuring out their priorities for FY26 as early as Q1 next year.

So, here’s a rundown of what the Senate bills included and how that differs from the House bills.

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

The bill provides level funding for the Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes (OLHCHH) at $345 million. As a reminder, the House had a minor cut to this office. The two chambers also included different allocations within this office:

		FY24	House FY25	Senate FY25
Total		$345 million	$335 million	$345 million
Lead hazard control grants		$200 million	$200 million	$200 million
Healthy homes activities (note that not all the items under this subcategory get broken out with specific amounts; e.g., amounts not specified below may help funding the Healthy Homes Supplemental and Healthy Homes Production Grants)		$140 million	$130 million	$142 million
	Healthy homes and weatherization cooperation demonstration grants	$5 million	—	—
	Aging in place grants	$30 million	—	$40 million
	Financing pilot (this would provide funds for the National Lead Safe and Healthy Homes Fund, which you can read more about here)	—	$10 million	—
Technical studies		$3 million	$5 million	$3 million
	Transfer to PD&R	$2 million	$2 million	$2 million
Radon in Public Housing		$2 million	—	—

 

The Senate did not include any rescissions of past funds for this office. In the president’s budget, released earlier this year, HUD proposed to shift 80% of the lead grants through this office to a formula funding model. Like the House, the Senate does not recommend this change (but see below for a little elaboration on that).

The Senate bill text included this language related to the Aging in Place grants:

That for funds made available for such grants in the preceding proviso¹ or under this heading or the heading ‘‘Housing for the Elderly’’ in prior Acts, all eligible activities, except those that would alter the existing footprint of a structure or improvement in a floodplain or a wetland, are exempt from environmental review and not subject to the Federal laws and authorities cited in section 58.5 of title 24, Code of Federal Regulations.

Removing the environmental review requirement for these grants would be a significant change and a step toward making these grants easier to operate. It is interesting that the bill alters this requirement only for the Aging in Place grants, not all OLHCHH or even all healthy homes grants.

The Senate report also contains several items of relevance:

• Lead Hazard Reduction Grants.— […] The Committee does not approve the request to allocate funds to jurisdictions with the highest need for lead hazard reduction grants by formula, but supports the Department’s goal of streamlining the selection and award process. The Committee directs HUD to continue to work with stakeholders and its authorizing committees as it develops this proposal and to solicit public input on program design.In the interim, the Committee directs the Department to continue to conduct outreach and improve the NOFOs to encourage more grantees to apply and make efficient use of lead hazard reduction grant funds. The Committee directs the Department to include in such outreach smaller and rural communities, and nonprofit organizations and community development financial institutions [CDFIs] interested in being co-applicants. The Committee directs the Department to brief the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations within 180 days of enactment of this act on such outreach, major participation barriers identified, whether those barriers are administrative or statutory in nature, and how CDFI lending capabilities can be leveraged to increase the pace at which low-income communities can address lead paint hazards in high-risk communities.
• Unobligated Balances.—The Committee continues to direct the Department to provide the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations with updated reports on all unobligated balances for each program following each funding competition award announcement. The Committee continues to closely monitor balances, program subscription rates, and funding reallocations between undersubscribed and oversubscribed programs to inform funding decisions.
• Lead Interagency Coordination.—The Committee reminds HUD of an outstanding requirement from Senate Report 118–70 to brief the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations on its data sharing needs with the EPA related to lead service line inventories.
• Lead Risk Assessment.—The Committee reminds OLHCHH and PIH² of the outstanding requirement from Public Law 118–42 to jointly engage with PHAs and other stakeholders to understand why so few applications were submitted for the lead risk assessment demonstration and brief the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations on the findings of this engagement.
• Aging in Place.— […] The Committee recommendation includes language to streamline the environmental review process for these low-cost interventions and directs HUD to take several other common-sense actions to improve the impact of these grants. HUD is directed to adjust the current $5,000 cap on the cost of home modifications per housing unit to account for annual changes in the cost of labor, materials and supplies. In designing the NOFO for this program, the Committee continues to encourage the use of successful models of low-barrier, participant-led, holistic approaches to aging-in-place. However, the Committee is concerned that the Department’s required use of occupational therapists in the program services model is not practical or necessary for all communities, and excludes other successful models that have helped form the Committee’s appreciation for the value of these investments, including the State of Maine’s community aging-in-place grant program. Thus, the Committee directs the Department to accept without additional justification alternative program services models that do not require occupational therapists for grants awarded with fiscal year 2025 funds or balances remaining from prior years. Applicants that propose an alternative model shall not be disadvantaged during the application and selection process on that basis. The Committee continues to direct HUD to track the outcomes of seniors whose homes have been modified in order to better understand the effectiveness of this funding in reducing at-home falls, hospitalizations, and emergency response calls, as well as improving independence and tenure in home over time. The Committee also encourages HUD to support research and technical studies on housing technologies that enable aging-in-place strategies within the amounts available for healthy homes technical studies.
• Weatherization Assistance Program.—The Committee reminds the Department of its responsibility to continue collecting information on how many units benefit from this coordinated execution of HUD lead-based paint hazard control grants and the Department of Energy weatherization assistance program, to quantify how this coordination has reduced costs for hardware and labor, and to provide this information to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations after the end of each grant cycle. The Committee looks forward to receiving the first such report in the near future and encourages the Department to highlight best practices in coordination that can be integrated into grant management practices.

Read the bill here. Read the report here.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

The bill provides level funding for programs within the National Center for Environmental Health that focus on childhood lead poisoning, asthma, environmental public health tracking. The House bill was similar, except that it eliminated funding for tracking (as well as CDC’s climate and health work).

		FY24	House FY25	Senate FY25
Lead		$51 million	$51 million	$51 million
Asthma		$33.5 million	$33.5 million	$33.5 million
Environmental Public Health Tracking		$34 million	—	$34 million

 

The Senate report includes the following notes on these program activities:

• Asthma.—The Committee includes $33,500,000 for the National Asthma Control Program [NACP] so CDC can work with States to improve health outcomes for people living with asthma. As the number and severity of wildfires increases, the Committee also urges the NACP to continue its efforts to develop public health interventions aimed at protecting people with asthma from wildfire smoke.
• Childhood Lead Poisoning.—The Committee includes $51,000,000 to improve health equity and to better prevent and mitigate childhood lead exposure and expand the data capabilities of the program to rapidly identify and address emerging threats in communities with elevated risk of exposure to lead. CDC is expected to support local capacity to improve the health of children through efforts to eliminate lead from their environment.

Read the bill here. Read the report here.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

All the programs we track at EPA that provide funding to address lead, indoor air quality, radon, children’s health, and environmental justice, live within line items that received level funding or very minor funding increases from the Senate. This is in contrast to the House bill, which reduced or eliminated many of them (except for some discrete grants to states).

As I mentioned in the last blog, some of these programs are so small that they don’t get their own line items in the budgets produced by Congress—but some of the report language mentions the priorities of a few of these programs:

• Indoor Air and Radiation.—The bill provides $29,429,000 for Indoor Air and Radiation. The Committee encourages the Agency to continue indoor air efforts in order to address wildfire smoke, extreme heat, and other indoor air quality hazards. The Committee recognizes the importance of safe and healthy learning environments which includes access to clean indoor air. The Committee supports the Agency’s Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools program and the ongoing grant programs to improve indoor environmental quality in schools. Within available funds, the Committee supports technical assistance and science-based resources on implementing source reduction strategies, sustainable ventilation, filtration and other indoor air quality improvements for healthy school environments.
• Toxics Risk Review and Prevention.— […] Given the significant impact lead exposure has on children and their development, the Committee encourages EPA to prioritize its efforts to protect the public from lead hazards, including working with other agencies and departments to advance progress in addressing lead hazards in homes with children and in schools.

In addition, the report offered support for the Biden-Harris Administration’s work on lead in water:

• Reducing Lead in Drinking Water.—The Committee encourages these funds to be prioritized and distributed to assist the communities most burdened by lead service lines in meeting the Administration’s 10-year goal as outlined in the Lead Pipe and Paint Plan.
• Lead Service Line Replacement.—The Committee recognizes that certain States have expressed an early commitment to the Agency’s 10-year goal, as outlined in the Lead Pipe and Paint Plan, by enacting state laws requiring lead service line replacement within 10 years. The Committee encourages the Agency to provide technical and operational assistance to communities within these States and to prioritize funding to help meet these goals.

Read the bill here. Read the report here.

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¹ This refers to the funding for grants helping older adults age in place, funded at $40 million in this bill.
² Public and Indian Housing. This item refers to a program supporting risk assessments in Housing Choice Voucher homes, which was funded for two years before funding was reallocated last year.

 

Sarah Goodwin joined NCHH as a policy analyst in June 2017. She previously served NCHH as a policy intern, helping to establish and run the Find It, Fix It, Fund It lead action drive and its work groups. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies: Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics, and Government from American University.