Agency Budget Overviews

The following are selected overviews of FY 2009 agency budgets as they impact healthy homes.

HUD
The Administration’s FY 2009 request for the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control totals $116 million, compared to $145 million appropriated by Congress in FY 2008 and $152 million in FY 2007. In FY 2008, Congress targeted $48 million for competitive grants of at least $2 million for the cities with the worst lead poisoning problems. The Administration’s FY 2009 request proposes to eliminate these targeted grants. The FY09 request also eliminates Operation LEAP funding. It includes includes $9 million for technical assistance and $15 million for the Healthy Homes Initiative grants.

The Alliance calls on Congress to provide a minimum of $175 million in HUD funding dedicated to lead safety and healthy homes—$135 million for lead hazard control (including $50 million in grants for areas with the worst lead hazards), $20 million for the Healthy Homes Initiative, $10 million for technical assistance on lead safety and healthy homes, and $10 million for Operation LEAP. While much higher levels of funding are needed and could be put to good use, these recommendations acknowledge the realities of the domestic budget constraints.

While the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control must provide leadership, all HUD programs need to incorporate healthy homes as a core goal. For example, in the FY 2009 Budget Request, HUD provides $1.967 billion to cities and states through HOME block grants, a significant share of which is used for housing rehabilitation that should advance healthy homes and lead safety.

More generally, the HUD budget needs to provide increased funding to ensure the availability and quality of housing for low-income and very low-income families and elderly citizens.

The Alliance calls on Congress to maintain adequate funding levels to ensure that HUD is able to maintain all existing vouchers under Section 8.

The Alliance calls on Congress to make total appropriations for housing and community development of at least $40 billion, up from the President’s $38.48 billion FY 2009 request.

EPA
The EPA’s budget buries information about specific FY 2009 funding for the Agency's lead program, making it unclear under which line-item the lead program funding is located. The funding request for the agency's radon program is similarly hidden. The agency's environmental justice program takes a $2.58 million cut in the proposed budget, to $3.8 million.

The Alliance calls on Congress to fund EPA's Lead Risk Reduction Program with a specific line-item, at a minimum of $15 million in FY 2009. The Alliance also calls for a specific line-item for the radon program. In addition, the Alliance urges Congress to reject in the strongest language possible any funding cuts to the agency's environmental justice initiative.

Health and Human Services (NIEHS, CDC)
The Department of Health and Human Services houses several agencies that conduct research and programs related to healthy homes.

NIEHS
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is responsible for tracking many issues directly related to healthy homes, including the impact of mold and moisture, asthma triggers, childhood lead poisoning, and more. The Institute’s overall budget line is very slightly increased (by $1 million) in the Administration’s FY 2009 budget, and only a small fraction of that funding is devoted to indoor hazards.

NIEHS needs to increase emphasis on indoor hazards based on their significant impact on human health and should separately account for funding of such activities.

CDC
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Environmental Health budget falls significantly under the president’s request for FY 2009. Though the asthma program and the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program would see very small cuts in FY09, after accounting for inflation, the funding decreases for the programs become more significant.

The Alliance urges Congress to increase CDC’s lead poisoning prevention grants to at least $51 million — compared to the proposed FY09 level of $34 million — to support the increased requirements on cities and states to develop and implement strategic plans, and to increase emphasis on primary prevention.

LIHEAP
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is funded through appropriations to HHS' Administration for Children and Families. The program provides energy assistance funds to low-income households and is especially important to seniors living in poverty. The Bush administration has proposed severe cuts to this program every fiscal year; FY09 is no exception, with the president having proposed a cut of more than $500 million.

The Alliance calls on Congress to signficantly increase funding for LIHEAP.

DOE
The Department of Energy administers a variety of programs that can directly or indirectly impact the home environment. Most important to healthy homes is the Weatherization Assistance Program, which provides weatherization treatments to approximately 100,000 homes each year. These treatments can help reduce lead hazards in homes if they are done using lead-safe work practices. The budget request proposes an irresponsibly deep funding cut for the program, from $282 million in FY08 to just over $58 million in FY09, a loss of $224 million.

The Alliance urges Congress to restore all funding to the Weatherization Assstance Program and to provide incentives for weatherization agencies that integrate healthy homes treatments into energy conservation.

Funding Status Update—FY 2009 (Last Updated February 19, 2008)

The following tables present proposed FY 2009 budget figures for selected federal agencies, offices, and programs that impact healthy and affordable housing.

Department of Housing & Urban Development
(amounts in thousands)
Program	FY 2008 Enacted (estimated)1	FY 2009 Administration Request1	FY 2009 House	FY 2009 Senate	FY 2009 Enacted
Total HUD Discretionary Budget Authority (Net)	$40,413,000	$38,484,000	$	$	$
Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control	$145,000	$116,000	$	$	$
Lead Hazard Control Grants to cities, counties, states, and tribes	$80,100	$92,000	$	$	$
Related Technical Assistance	$7,000	$9,000	$	$	$
Operation LEAP	$9,000	$0	$	$	$
Healthy Homes Initiative	$9,000	$15,000	$	$	$
Urban Lead Hazard Reduction Program	$48,000	$0	$	$	$
Community Development Block Grants Fund	$3,866,000	$3,000,000	$	$	$
HOME Investment Partnerships Program	$1,704,000	$1,967,000	$	$	$

Notes:

¹ As reported by HUD at www.hud.gov/about/budget/fy09/fy09budget.pdf.

² As reported by EPA at www.epa.gov/ocfo/budget/2009/2009bib.pdf.

³ As reported by CDC at www.cdc.gov/fmo/PDFs/FY09_CDC_CJ_Final.pdf.

⁴ A number of NIEHS research programs bear directly or indirectly on healthy homes issues, including: the Centers for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research; Population Health and Health Disparities; Community-Based Participatory Research in Environmental Health; Advanced Research Cooperation in Environmental Health; and Health Disparities Research. Only a fraction of these programs’ funding addresses in the indoor environment, but the amount is not ascertainable. Appropriations allocated to NIEHS for CERCLA/Superfund activities through the FY 2008 VA/HUD proposed budgets are not included in this chart.

⁵ As reported by HHS at www.hhs.gov/budget/09budget/2009BudgetInBrief.pdf.

⁶ As reported by DOE at www.cfo.doe.gov/budget/09budget/Content/Volumes/Volume3a.pdf.