FEMA Loan Interest Payment Relief Act

I 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 2669 To amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to provide for the authority to reimburse local governments or electric cooperatives for interest expenses, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES APRIL 20, 2021 Mr. DUNN (for himself, Mr. SOTO, Mr. RUTHERFORD, Mr. GRAVES of Lou- isiana, Mr. LAWSON of Florida, Mr. GIMENEZ, and Mr. BILIRAKIS) intro- duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Trans- portation and Infrastructure A BILL To amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emer- gency Assistance Act to provide for the authority to reimburse local governments or electric cooperatives for interest expenses, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘FEMA Loan Interest 4 Payment Relief Act’’. 5 VerDate Sep 11 2014 04:50 Jun 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H2669.IH H2669 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 •HR 2669 IH SEC. 2. REIMBURSEMENT OF INTEREST PAYMENTS RE- 1 LATED TO PUBLIC ASSISTANCE. 2 (a) IN GENERAL.—Title IV of the Robert T. Stafford 3 Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 4 5170 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the fol- 5 lowing: 6 ‘‘SEC. 431. REIMBURSEMENT OF INTEREST PAYMENTS RE- 7 LATED TO PUBLIC ASSISTANCE. 8 ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—The President, acting through 9 the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management 10 Agency, shall provide financial assistance to a local gov- 11 ernment or electric cooperative as reimbursement for 12 qualifying interest. 13 ‘‘(b) DEFINITIONS.—In this section, the following 14 definitions apply: 15 ‘‘(1) QUALIFYING INTEREST.—The term ‘quali- 16 fying interest’ means, with respect to a qualifying 17 loan, the lesser of— 18 ‘‘(A) the actual interest paid to a lender 19 for such qualifying loan; and 20 ‘‘(B) the interest that would have been 21 paid to a lender if such qualifying loan had an 22 interest rate equal to the prime rate most re- 23 cently published on the Federal Reserve Statis- 24 tical Release on selected interest rates. 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 04:50 Jun 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H2669.IH H2669 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 •HR 2669 IH ‘‘(2) QUALIFYING LOAN.—The term ‘qualifying 1 loan’ means a loan— 2 ‘‘(A) obtained by a local government or 3 electric cooperative; and 4 ‘‘(B) of which not less than 90 percent of 5 the proceeds are used to fund activities for 6 which such local government or electric coopera- 7 tive receives assistance under this Act after the 8 date on which such loan is disbursed.’’. 9 (b) RULE OF APPLICABILITY.—Any qualifying inter- 10 est (as such term is defined in section 431 of the Robert 11 T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance 12 Act, as added by this Act) incurred by a local government 13 or electric cooperative in the 5 years preceding the date 14 of enactment of this Act shall be treated as eligible for 15 financial assistance for purposes of such section. 16 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 04:50 Jun 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\H2669.IH H2669 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS