This week, the Partnership for Sustainable Communities celebrated three years of collaborative and innovative work, but members of Congress proposed to eliminate and restrict the funding of its programs.
While the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Appropriations (T-HUD) bill in the Senate had not been brought to the floor, the full House of Representatives has passed their T-HUD bill on a vote of 261-163. Unfortunately, the House’s T-HUD bill not only included language to defund HUD’s Sustainable Communities Initiative and DOT’s TIGER grants, an amendment offered by Congressman Morgan Griffith (VA-9) went one step further to disallow funds to be used for “any new grant under the livable communities program of the [DOT] or the sustainable communities program of [HUD] or to implement and transfer of funds for any such new grant.”
Also this week, the Interior and Environment appropriations bill zeroed out funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s smart growth program and reduces EPA funding overall by 17 percent. The long-standing Smart Growth Program has a history of success and earned high marks during the Bush administration. It now composes the Office of Sustainable Communities as the EPA portion of the interagency Partnership.
Smart Growth America urges you to tell your members of Congress how the programs of the Partnership are creating community-specific solutions across the country. Show them the positive economic, social and environmental impacts that can come from having a program that simply encourages communities to think about how they build and grow.
Click here to see our previous update on Appropriations.