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B-284226.2 1 (2000-08-17)

handle is hein.gao/gaocrptakzz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: tG A O__ _ _ _ __ United States General Accounting Office Office of the General Counsel Washington, DC 20548 B-284226.2 August 17, 2000 The Honorable Susan Gaffney Inspector General Department of Housing and Urban Development Subject: Application of Anti-Lobbving Restrictions to HUD Report Losing Ground Dear Ms. Gaffney: By letter of March 27, 2000, you requested that we reconsider our informal views which we provided to the staff of Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., regarding the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) publication of Losing Ground: The Impact of Proposed HUD Budget Cuts on America's Communities. The Congressman was concerned that HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo had, through the issuance of the Losing Ground report, violated anti-lobbying laws. After careful consideration of the analysis contained in your letter, we continue to believe that neither the Losing Ground report itself, nor the Secretary in issuing it, violated applic able anti-lobbying laws. BACKGROUND The Losing Ground report, dated August 1999, criticized the deep cuts in HUD programs proposed by the House Appropriations Committee in the fiscal year 2000 HUD appropriations bill. The report stated that the cuts would have a devastating impact on families and communities nationwide and purported to detail the consequences on HUD's programs if the funding cuts were enacted. Two appendices to the report gave further details on the funding reductions, as well as the consequences of the reductions that, according to HUD, would have been visited on communities nationwide. Accompanying the report was a letter dated September 3, 1999, with the salutation Dear Colleague, and signed by Secretary Cuomo. In the letter, the Secretary noted that the Losing Ground report provided important and timely information about the impact of the reductions to HUD's programs that are currently being proposed in the House of Representatives.