Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 850318.pdf

Citation: Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 850318.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
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Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/850318.pdf ↗

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CARES Act. Nine months later, in December 2020, that same Congress also

passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. Pub. L. No. 116-260, § 501,

134 Stat. 1182, 2069-79 (2020). Within that bill, Congress included a provision

titled “Emergency Rental Assistance,” which was contained within Title V—

Banking, set forth a rental payment assistance program and, notably, expressly

indicated that it was to be codified at 15 U.S.C. § 9058a. 134 Stat. at 2069.

The 116th Congress’s enactment of the Emergency Rental Assistance

provision would be a much better source of legislative intent than the CRS report

in interpreting Section 4024 of the CARES Act. The 116th Congress indicated

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No. 85031-8-I/21

that such provision was to be located at 15 U.S.C. § 9058a, immediately adjacent

to 15 U.S.C. § 9058, where, in the CARES Act, that same Congress had

indicated that Section 4024 was to be codified. This is significant not only

because the Emergency Rental Assistance provision set forth provisions

explicitly oriented toward economic relief and stabilization—appropriating and

allocating funds to be put toward rental payment assistance—but also because

the members of Congress were almost all the same as those who, earlier that

year, had voted on the CARES Act and Section 4024 herein. Given that, such

enactment and placement of such a provision is much more likely to reflect the

116th Congress’s earlier intent with regard to Section 4024 than an equivocal

writing drafted by staff members who were not elected to Congress and who did

not vote on such enactments.

In January 2021, one month after the Consolidated Appropriations Act