Mounting evidence that the housing foreclosure crisis is only picking up steam prompted House Financial Services chairman Barney Frank today to warn again that he might revive a proposal to change bankruptcy rules.

Frank, (D-Ma), last spring tried unsuccessfully to push through a foreclosure relief bill known as cramdown, which would have allowed federal judges to lower mortgage payments and interest rates for bankrupt homeowners facing foreclosure. 

The plan passed the House in March. But a month later, after a massive lobbying campaign led by the Mortgage Bankers Association, it failed in the Senate 45-51.

In an interview today with the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, Frank said the cramdown bill would stand a better chance of passing now because banks have been slow to modify mortgages on their own. “It’s the failure of the alternatives that will make up for some votes that we didn’t have before,” Frank said in the interview. (For a video of the interview, see below.)

The federal government’s Making Home Affordable Program, which gives loan servicers cash incentives to modify mortgages, hasn’t done the trick either, he said today at a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing: "I am disappointed at the pace of this program.”

Stoking Frank’s concerns, the Treasury Department today released a progress report that revealed only 12 percent of eligible homeowners have been able to modify their mortgages through the program.

Some of the largest banks are being criticized for not doing enough.  Bank of America has modified only 6 percent of their eligible customers loans while Wells Fargo has modified only 4 percent, according to the report.

Bank of America executive Jack Schakett testified before the subcommittee today that the cramdown legislation would not help modify more loans.

This isn’t the first time Frank threatened to reintroduce the cramdown. Last month, after Treasury met with 25 mortgage servicers to encourage them to ramp up the program, Frank issued a statement saying that if they did not show results: “the argument for reviving the bankruptcy option will be extremely strong.”

Republicans—and some Democrats--are sure to challenge any cramdown effort. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the committee, said at the hearing: "A homeowner who has lost his job needs a new job, not a government handout."