Congress Has Defunded AFFH
Paul Mirengoff, Powerline, March 28, 2018
The omnibus bill Congress passed and President Trump ssigned last week is a disaster. However, one positive thing to come out of it, in addition of course to the increase in military spending, was the defunding of President Obama’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation (AFFH). {snip}
AFFH enables the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to order more than 1,200 cities and counties that accepted any part of annual community development block grants to rezone neighborhoods along income and racial criteria. {snip}
The omnibus provides:
“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to direct a grantee to undertake specific changes to existing zoning laws as part of carrying out the final rule entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing’ … or the notice entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Assessment Tool’. . .”Ne
{snip}
Should Democrats win the midterm elections in November, they might seek to strip this language out of next year’s HUD appropriations bill. To avert this possibility, Carson must begin the regulatory rescission process immediately. There is not a moment to lose. . . .
Congress has done its job. Now it is up to the Trump administration with Carson in the lead to rescind this regulation with the window of opportunity Congress has given, so that no administration ever again attempts to take over local governments across the country.
