The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs approved the nomination of Representative Mel Watt (D-NC) for the position of Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) on July 18 by a party-line vote of 12 to10. NLIHC supports Mr. Watt’s nomination and is hopeful that, if confirmed, Mr. Watt would determine that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must fulfill their statutory obligation to fund the National Housing Trust Fund. The failure of FHFA to direct the GSEs to commence contributions now that they are once again profitable is the subject of a lawsuit filed by NLIHC and others on July 9 (see Memo, 7/12).Mr. Watt now must be approved by the full Senate, but if and when that occurs remains to be seen. The prospects improved this last week when the Senate reached an agreement to proceed on executive nominations that have been long stalled by partisan disagreements. This led to the approval of Thomas Perez for Secretary of Labor and Gina McCarthy as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency by the full Senate. It is not clear if this agreement will extend to Mr. Watt’s nomination, especially given the partisan divide of the vote to report his nomination out of committee.