[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 61 (Wednesday, May 5, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H2605-H2607]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   SMALL PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITY ACT

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 27) to amend the United States Housing Act of 1937 to exempt 
small public housing agencies from the requirement of preparing an 
annual public housing agency plan, as amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                                H.R. 27

       Be it enacted the the Senate and House of Representatives 
     of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Small Public Housing 
     Authority Act''.

     SEC. 2. PUBLIC HOUSING AGENCY PLANS FOR CERTAIN SMALL PUBLIC 
                   HOUSING AGENCIES.

       Section 5A(b) of the United States Housing Act of 1937 (42 
     U.S.C. 1437c-1(b)) is amended by adding at the end the 
     following new paragraph:
       ``(3) Exemption of certain small phas from filing 
     requirement.--
       ``(A) In general.--Notwithstanding paragraph (1) or any 
     other provision of this Act--
       ``(i) the requirement under paragraph (1) shall not apply 
     to any qualified small public housing agency; and
       ``(ii) any reference in this section or any other provision 
     of law to a `public housing agency' shall not be considered 
     to refer to any qualified small public housing agency, to the 
     extent such reference applies to the requirement to submit a 
     public housing agency plan under this subsection.
       ``(B) Definition.--For purposes of this paragraph, the term 
     `qualified small public housing agency' means a public 
     housing agency that meets all of the following requirements:
       ``(i) The sum of (I) the number of public housing dwelling 
     units administered by the agency, and (II) the number of 
     vouchers under section 8(o) of the United States Housing Act 
     of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437f(o)) administered by the agency, is 
     100 or fewer.
       ``(ii) The agency is not designated pursuant to section 
     6(j)(2) as a troubled public housing agency.
       ``(iii) The agency provides assurances satisfactory to the 
     Secretary that notwithstanding the inapplicability of the 
     requirements under this section relating to resident advisory 
     boards and public hearings and notice, residents of public 
     housing administered by the agency will have an adequate and 
     comparable opportunity for participation and notice regarding 
     establishment of the goals, objectives, and policies of the 
     public housing agency.''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Waters) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter).


                             General Leave

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks on the legislation and to insert extraneous material on the 
bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Nebraska?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, this Member rises today to express his support for H.R. 
27, the Small Public Housing Authority Act. The bill, which was 
introduced by this Member on January 27, 2003, will be considered under 
suspension of the rules. This legislation, which addresses the annual 
plan requirements for small public housing authorities passed the 
Committee on Financial Services by a unanimous, bipartisan voice vote 
on March 17, 2004. It is important to note that this Member introduced 
this legislation in the 107th Congress as well.
  First, this Member would like to thank both the distinguished 
gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Oxley) and the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the ranking minority member, for their 
efforts in bringing this measure to the floor.
  Indeed, following some concerns and suggestions from the gentleman 
from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), compromise language was agreed upon to 
ensure unanimous support for this legislation. It should be noted for 
background that the Public Housing Reform Act requires PHAs to submit 
both a 5-year plan and an annual plan to HUD. The 5-year PHA plan 
addresses the Agency's mission and their plan to achieve their mission. 
The annual plan requires PHAs to provide details about updates or 
changes to the 5-year plan.
  Specifically, the annual plan, among other things, has typically 
asked for the following information: Housing needs of the families in 
the jurisdiction; strategies to meet these needs; statement of 
financial resources; and PHA policies governing eligibility, selection, 
and admissions. HUD has made the effort to streamline this annual 
planning for small PHAs and for high-performing PHAs. However, 
incredibly, an example of a streamlined plan was still 47 pages with 
extensive attachments.
  This legislation would exempt small PHAs from being required to 
submit that annual plan to HUD. Under the bill as it passed the House 
Committee on Financial Services, a small PHA is defined to be one which 
has 100 or fewer combined public housing units and section 8 vouchers. 
PHAs, which are exempt from the annual planning requirement, would 
still have to prepare a 5-year plan. Moreover, a small PHA which is 
designated as a troubled housing agency by HUD would still be required 
to submit that annual plan.
  This legislation also includes a provision that tenants of small PHAs 
which are exempt from the annual planning requirement must continue to 
have an adequate and comparable opportunity for participation and 
notice regarding the establishment of goals, objectives and policies of 
that PHA.
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation is needed to simply provide some 
regulatory burden relief to small PHAs which do not have the time, 
staff or resources to do these annual HUD plans by themselves. Many of 
these small PHAs only have a part-time executive director. Currently, 
small PHAs are forced to hire consultants since they do not have the 
computer software package to complete these annual plans, and these 
consultants are expensive costs for small PHAs which already face some 
daunting financial challenges.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to note that these small PHAs 
are located across the entire Nation. Today this Member will focus on 
the small PHAs in Nebraska because I am most familiar with them. For 
example, in this Member's district, there are 23 PHAs which would 
qualify under the definition used for small PHAs. There are 
approximately 60 PHAs in Nebraska statewide which qualify as small PHAs 
under this bill, especially in the district of the gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), and he will speak on that.
  To give a not-atypical example from this Member's congressional 
district, the village of Beemer is a community of 773 people, according 
to the last census. They have a PHA which administered just 20 public 
housing units and no section 8 vouchers. Under the current law, the 
Beemer PHA is required to submit the extensive annual plan to HUD which 
I have mentioned.

[[Page H2606]]

  In conclusion, this bill contains reasonable provisions regarding PHA 
annual plans which enjoy bipartisan support. This Member would urge his 
colleagues to support H.R. 27, the Small Public Housing Authority Act.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bipartisan legislation offered 
by the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) which would ease the 
paperwork requirements for certain small public housing authorities and 
reduce their need to hire consultants to prepare housing plans, and I 
would like to congratulate both the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) and 
ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), for the 
leadership they provided, recognizing that it is important for us to 
come together from time to time to work to get rid of unnecessary 
regulations and they have done that with this bill.
  H.R. 27 would exempt small housing authorities that administer 100 or 
fewer units of assisted housing from the requirement to prepare an 
annual public housing agency plan. The threshold would include both 
public housing units and vouchers under section 8 of the United States 
Housing Act of 1937.
  The affected small housing authorities would remain subject to the 
Public Housing Reform Act's requirement to submit a 5-year PHA plan to 
the Department of Housing and Urban Development that addresses the 
Agency's mission and its plan to achieve its mission.
  In order to qualify as a small housing authority under this bill, an 
agency would have to provide assurances satisfactory to the Secretary 
of HUD that notwithstanding the inapplicability of certain provisions 
relating to resident advisory boards and public hearings and notice, 
residents of public housing administered by the Agency will have an 
adequate and comparable opportunity for participation and notice 
regarding establishment of the goals, objectives and policies of the 
public housing agency.
  The objective of this legislation simply is to reduce the 
administration workload of small PHAs. The goal of H.R. 27 is to give 
executive directors of small PHAs more time to focus on the needs of 
their tenants, rather than having to spend time and resources 
completing an annual plan for submission to HUD.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe this legislation will help to limit the burden 
on small PHAs while providing the necessary protections to ensure that 
tenants will have the opportunity for input into the small PHA's 5-year 
plan. I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her supportive 
comments as we try to meet the Nation's diverse housing needs.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  I rise in support of H.R. 27, which was introduced by the gentleman 
from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), and thank the gentleman for his long and 
effective service to Congress over many years. He has done a great job 
and has been very helpful to me and other people in Nebraska.
  Mr. Speaker, there are over 50 small public housing authorities in my 
district that will benefit from this legislation. I think the gentleman 
from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) mentioned there are 60 in the State of 
Nebraska. My district is almost entirely rural. Most of these PHAs are 
very, very small, and so we have the vast majority in this particular 
district.
  As the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) mentioned, this 
legislation is needed to simply provide some regulatory burden relief 
to small PHAs which do not have the time or staff or resources to do 
housing and urban development plans by themselves. Many of these PHAs 
have only a part-time executive director, and they hire consultants. 
Sometimes these PHAs are spending $600 to $1,000 a year just for a 
consultant's fee, and the complexity and length of the reports are 
ridiculous for the size of the PHA.
  If a small PHA in my district is able to create the report, they 
often have difficulty in filing that report because the Internet dial-
up systems are extremely slow, and often they are disconnected before 
their reports are filed.
  So this bill really does what Congress oftentimes fails to do, which 
is to provide some much-needed regulatory relief. It simplifies rather 
than complicates the process. I would like to thank the gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) for introducing this legislation, the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) the chairman of the Committee on Financial 
Services, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), and the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) for their efforts in bringing 
this measure to the House floor. I urge its support.
  Mr. NEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my support for H.R. 27, 
the Small Public Housing Authority Act. This legislation addresses the 
regulatory burdens placed on smaller Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) 
to comply with annual planning requirements enacted into law under the 
Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998. I am confident 
that passage of this bill would correct an adverse unintended 
consequence for smaller PHAs. This legislation passed the House 
Financial Services Committee, by a unanimous bipartisan voice vote on 
March 17, 2004.
  The authors of the 1998 Act envisioned a planning process for PHAs 
that could be used as a tool for advancing management, budgeting, 
forecasting and tenant needs, among other things. The 1998 Act required 
a 5-year plan as well as annual planning updates. In the best of all 
worlds, Congress intended for this tool to be complimentary of the 
great things that PHAs were currently undertaking to meet the new 
challenges of housing low-income families and individuals. What 
Congress did not intend, however, was a complicated planning system 
that would require many PHAs to hire expensive consultants and detract 
resources from other management issues.
  Advocates of the 5-year and annual planning process argue that this 
management tool would require PHAs to engage tenants and actually 
provide de facto business plans that would assist in meeting future 
challenges before a crisis occurs. Opponents claim that both planning 
requirements have been a paper exercise taking away employee and 
funding resources that could be applied to other management needs. We 
have yet to get a complete picture of whether the planning process is a 
useful exercise. I think that it is something that the Committee should 
continue to review.
  We are clear, however, that the smaller PHAs, of which we define in 
this legislation as those authorities with no more than 100 units or 
section 8 vouchers, have had difficulty complying with the annual 
requirements. This legislation would provide much needed regulatory 
relief for these smaller organizations where the development of the 
annual plans usually falls on a staff composed of very few individuals.
  Mindful that the planning process has been used as an effective tool 
for tenant groups to provide input to PHA management, we have provided 
language to preserve the tenant's rights. This, we believe, is a 
healthy balance between the needs and resources of the PHA management 
teams as well as the needs of the tenants and their respective 
organizations.
  On a final note, let me just say that it has been my pleasure to work 
with the sponsor of this legislation--the Gentleman from Nebraska--over 
the almost 10 years I have served in Congress and on the Committee on 
Financial Services and its predecessor--The Committee on Banking and 
Financial Service. Mr. Bereuter has been an expert on a variety of 
issues, not limited to rural housing where he developed numerous 
programs such as the single family loan guarantee program as well as 
the multifamily loan guarantee program. In addition, he has been 
instrumental on reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program and 
providing much needed reform to address repetitive loss issues. I am 
hopeful that the flood insurance bill will be signed into law before 
Mr. Bereuter retires.
  On issues such as the legislation today, Mr. Bereuter has ensured 
that rural and small-town America would be heard and their perspectives 
recognized. Mr. Bereuter will retire at the end of this summer and I 
ask all of my colleagues to join me in wishing him well and thanking 
him for his service.
  Finally, I want to thank the Committee Chairman, Mr. Mike Oxley, as 
well as the Ranking Chairman, Mr. Barney Frank, for moving this bill 
through the Committee. Moreover, I want to thank the Housing 
Subcommittee's Ranking Member, Ms. Maxine Waters, for all her hard work 
on this and many issues facing this Subcommittee.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of H.R. 27.

[[Page H2607]]

  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my support for H.R. 
27, the Small Public Housing Authority Act. This bill will be 
considered under the suspension of the rules. This legislation, which 
addresses the annual plan requirement for small public housing 
authorities (PHAs), passed the House Financial Services Committee by a 
unanimous bipartisan voice vote on March 17, 2004.
  First, I would like to thank the distinguished gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), the author of this legislation, for his 
efforts in attempting to reduce the regulatory burdens that small PHAs 
face. I would also like to thank the distinguished gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the Chairman of the Subcommittee for Housing 
and Community Opportunity, Mr. Bob Ney, and the ranking member, Ms. 
Maxine Waters, for their support of H.R. 27.
  This legislation would exempt small PHAs from being required to 
submit an annual plan to the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development (HUD). Under current law, PHAs are required to submit both 
a 5-year plan and an annual plan to HUD. This legislation is needed to 
provide some regulatory relief to small PHAs who do not have the 
resources or time to do these HUD annual plans by themselves. 
Currently, small PHAs are having to hire expensive third parties to 
complete these annual plans. Furthermore, an indirect result of this 
bill would give executive directors of these small PHAs more time to 
focus on the important needs of their tenants.
  The exemption of these smaller PHAs will not have an adverse impact 
on the ability of tenant organizations to continue to have input with 
the manager's of their developments. Language was incorporated into the 
legislation to ensure tenant's participation. Additionally, I want to 
assure my colleagues that this legislation will still require smaller 
PHAs to provide the forward-type thinking and advance planning as 
required under the 5-year plans.
  The larger question, however, raised by this legislation is whether 
the planning requirements for smaller and larger PHAs alike can be a 
useful tool. It appears that the jury is still out on that question and 
the Committee will review the issue to determine how we can provide as 
much flexibility to the Public Housing Authorities, decrease 
unnecessary regulatory burdens as well as ensure that tenants have a 
stake in the communities where they live.
  In conclusion, I want to urge your support for H.R. 27. This 
bipartisan bill contains important provisions to reduce the regulatory 
burdens on small PHAs.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I urge an aye vote on the bill, and I yield 
back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I urge an aye vote, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Chocola). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) that the House 
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 27, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor 
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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