The White House on Thursday warned that the House’s amended bipartisan housing bill lawmakers plan to vote on next week may contain “serious policy concerns or implementation challenges.”
“The bill is under review. New provisions were added before the administration had a chance to review or provide technical assistance,” a White House official said in a statement to POLITICO.
The House’s bill, released late Wednesday, is an amended version of the Senate-passed housing affordability legislation that received 89 votes in the upper chamber in March and earned the endorsement of the White House. Both bills broadly aim to increase housing supply and homeownership and have become a key policy goal for both parties going into a midterm election season dominated by affordability concerns.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that the clearest path to getting legislation to the president’s desk is for the House to pass the Senate’s bill. He said the Senate language “was carefully constructed to get at what the president wanted to address.”
“We’ve done what we can do — it’s in the court of the House,” Thune said to reporters.
Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott and ranking member Elizabeth Warren, architects of the Senate-passed package, on Thursday continued to urge the House to vote on the legislation as-is.
“The president of the United States has said he supports the Senate bill,” the Massachusetts Democrat told reporters. “We could make this law and go forward. Enough delay, let’s get this bill on through.”
“As Chairman Scott has said many times, it is time for the House to support President Trump and pass the 21st Century Road to Housing Act unamended,” said Jeff Naft, a spokesperson for the South Carolina Republican.
The lower-chamber’s version of the housing bill is expected to receive enough bipartisan support in the House to pass next week under an expedited process, addresses industry concerns and still keeps the Senate’s version “intact,” a GOP House Financial Services Committee aide said during a call with reporters Thursday.
House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and ranking member Maxine Waters reached an agreement on changes, according to both the aide and Herline Mathieu, a spokesperson for the California Democrat.
There were concerns that the Senate’s language limiting so-called institutional investors in the housing market could curtail investment in the housing industry. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were especially concerned with a provision that would require single-family homes built as long-term rentals be sold to individual homebuyers within seven years.
Hill said the House bill addresses concerns from hundreds of lawmakers and stakeholders.
“This bipartisan amendment reflects that feedback,” the Arkansas Republican said in a statement Thursday. “It cuts unnecessary barriers to new home construction, modernizes [Housing and Urban Development] programs, and allows banks to more freely deploy funding into their communities. We must get this right – and I am committed to working hard to do that.”
Jordain Carney and Jasper Goodman contributed to this report.
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