	Introduction to Transportation, HUD, and Related Agencies (THUD)

The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) appropriations subcommittee is charged with providing annual appropriations for the Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and related agencies. Status of the FY2012 THUD Appropriations Bill

 Table 1 provides a timeline of legislative action on the FY2012 THUD appropriations bill, and Table 2 lists the total funding provided for each of the titles in the bill for FY2011 and the amount requested for that title for FY2012. Most of the programs and activities in the THUD bill are funded through regular annual appropriations , also referred to as discretionary appropriations. As shown in Figure 1 , when it comes to net discretionary budget authority (appropriations, less any offsets), the vast majority of funding allocated by the appropriations committee generally goes to HUD (over 74% in FY2011). Each dollar available to the subcommittee in rescissions and offsets serves to reduce the "cost" of providing another dollar in appropriations. The Obama Administration's FY2012 budget request reflected a reauthorization proposal for DOT surface transportation programs. This proposal would have front-loaded a large increase in funding in the first year of the Administration's proposed six-year surface transportation reauthorization plan, with funding levels for each of the subsequent five years lower than the total for FY2012. The President's FY2012 budget proposed to rename the fund the Transportation Trust Fund and to increase authorized expenditures from the fund to a total of $554 billion over the next six years by increasing the funding levels of existing surface transportation programs and by adding the Federal Railroad Administration and the Federal Transit Administration's New Starts transit construction program to the programs funded by the fund. The House draft stated that it provided funding from the Highway Trust Fund at a level that the revenues of the fund could support in FY2012; this represented a reduction in funding of 35% from FY2011 levels for the two largest accounts supported by the Highway Trust Fund (from $41.1 billion to $27.0 billion for the federal-aid highway program account, and from $8.3 billion to $5.2 billion for the transit formula and bus grant funding account). The Capital Investment Grants program received $2.0 billion in FY2010; in FY2011, it received $1.6 billion. The President's FY2012 budget requested a 14% reduction in the Operating Fund compared to the final FY2011 funding law. P.L. The Senate-passed FY2011 appropriations bill included $65 million for the NFMCP and $60 million for HUD's housing counseling program. 112-55 includes $80 million for the NFMCP and $45 million for HUD's program.
The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) appropriations subcommittee is charged with providing annual appropriations for the Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and related agencies. The HUD budget generally accounts for the largest share of discretionary appropriations provided by the subcommittee. However, when mandatory funding is taken into account, DOT's budget is larger than HUD's budget. Mandatory funding typically accounts for a little less than half of the bill total.
The President's FY2012 budget request for DOT reflected a reauthorization proposal for DOT surface transportation programs. This proposal would have front-loaded a large increase in funding in the first year of the Administration's proposed six-year surface transportation reauthorization plan, with funding levels for each of the subsequent five years lower than the total for FY2012. The President's FY2012 budget for HUD requested about a $2.5 billion increase in funding for HUD's programs and activities, to be partially offset by about a $1.6 billion increase in offsetting collections and receipts.
The House never introduced a formal FY2012 THUD appropriations bill. A draft bill, marked up by the THUD subcommittee, included significantly decreased funding for both HUD and DOT relative to FY2011. The Senate-passed FY2012 THUD appropriations bill provided increased funding for DOT relative to FY2011 but decreased funding for HUD relative to FY2011.
In the final FY2012 THUD appropriations law (Division C of P.L. 112-55, referred to as a "Minibus" because it included appropriations bills from two other subcommittees), Congress provided about $57 billion in discretionary funding for the programs and activities funded under the Transportation, HUD, and Related Agencies subcommittee. This total funding level is an increase over the FY2011 level of $55 billion. DOT received approximately the same level of new funding as it received in FY2011, while net budget authority for HUD decreased by about $3.7 billion from FY2011. The FY2012 DOT budget appears to be larger than it was in FY2011 because the FY2011 appropriations act included over $3 billion in rescissions to offset the DOT budget total, which had the effect of making the total look smaller without reducing the amount of funding available to the agency. DOT also received nearly $2 billion in emergency relief appropriations in FY2012, which counterbalanced a $2 billion reduction in highway funding. Most of the decrease in HUD's net budget authority is attributable to increases in the amount of offsetting collections available to offset the cost of the HUD budget, although total funding for programs and activities was reduced by about $1 billion.