Yesterday the House Financial Services Committee passed H.R. 1427, the Federal Housing Reform Act of 2007. The bill will provide additional funding for affordable housing and change the oversight of the government sponsored enterprises (GSE) of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks. Last year efforts were made to greatly restrict the affordable housing trust fund, limiting the groups that could apply based on lobbying and GOTV activities. Fortunately these same attempts were not made this year and the bill passed committee yesterday is absent language of the sort. However, an amendment introduced by Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL) was adopted that would cap at 10 percent the administrative costs for groups receiving grants from the fund. This favors large nonprofits that receive numerous grants. Read the committee press release here.