Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, the explanation of this amendment that we just heard is exactly upside down. Exactly wrong and backwards.

The fact is that our amendment would ensure that the level of housing assistance is maintained at the same level as previously; that it is not automatically reduced when public housing buildings are demolished or sold. It continues the same number of affordable housing units as previously.

Every year we demolish several thousand units. Until January of this year, the policy always was if you demolish 100 units, there are 100 section 8 vouchers issued, so the number of affordable units in the community does not go down.

In January, HUD put out a new regulation which said that we will replace the units under lease with new vouchers so that if 100 units are demolished but 10 of them were not occupied at that moment because people were moving in and out, they would only replace 90 vouchers. In other words, the number of affordable units would go down.

The policy we have always had which this amendment seeks to continue, not to change, is that when you demolish public housing, you maintain the same number of units by issuing the same number of vouchers, not less, not more. Contrary to what the distinguished chairman said, this would not increase the number of vouchers issued, this would maintain it at the same level as we always have had; one-for-one replacement for all of the low-income housing demolished.

The administration seeks to change that policy, first by HUD regulation last January that said we will only replace those actually occupied at that moment. So if 5 percent of the units are under repair or 5 percent of the units have people moving in and out, there is always some churning, we won't replace those. So the number will go down every time we do this. That is pernicious. It means, as the gentleman from Massachusetts said, that if you want to demolish an overconcentrated housing or you want to privatize an existing section 8 building, what will replace it will be fewer units of subsidized housing.

In the bill before us, the distinguished committee violated the rules of the House because they seek to take this policy initiated by HUD by regulation in January and by adding the words ``under lease'' to the bill, they would say in a broader perspective, in a broader universe than covered by the regulation, we would only replace occupied units.

The Rules Committee said points of order against the bill are waived so we could not raise a point of order against legislating on an appropriations bill. An amendment to take out those words would itself be legislating on an appropriation bill, so it's a one-way racket. The committee can get away with it but we can't unlegislate from the floor.

So this amendment is narrower. It, unfortunately, doesn't prevent the committee from doing what it is doing, which changes the number of units we are replacing to a fraction of those being demolished in some of the housing; but for the public housing at least, which the bill doesn't do but the regulation did, where the regulation said from now on we will only replace occupied units, not the total number of units, this amendment says no funds appropriated shall be used to enforce that regulation. That we can do.

So the CBO scores this amendment as costing zero dollars. All it says is we can't use funds to implement that regulation. It doesn't change the amount of money appropriated for section 8 by a nickel.

What it does say is we will not countenance a change by the department so that the previous policy, which we want to maintain, is if you demolish public housing, you demolish 100 units, you have to have 100 units to replace it, so the total amount of low-income housing in the community is not going down.

They want to replace that by saying they will only replace the units occupied at that moment. So the normal churning effect, people moving in, people moving out, would demolish the number of units replaced.

So this amendment would keep the existing system, the system that has existed for the last few decades, one-for-one replacement, and it is scored by CBO as costing nothing. I would urge the House to adopt this amendment.