Trump sketches out a battle plan on housing affordability

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Housing affordability has become a front burner issue, and President Trump spared no time setting out his plan targeting the government regulations and red tape adversely impacting the housing market.
Trump’s January 20th Executive Order, Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost of Living Crisis, notes that that the high cost of housing is “due in part to regulatory requirements that alone account for 25 percent of the cost of constructing a new home, according to recent analysis.” The Executive Order directs all agencies do what they can to “lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply…”
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) would be a good place to start. Last year, Biden’s HUD imposed stringent international building code requirements on all new homes qualifying for federally-backed mortgages. Climate change activists were pleased by the move, but the National Association of Home Builders estimates it could add up to $31,000 to the cost of a new home. In fact, this may be the single most egregious example of a Biden administration agency abandoning its statutory priorities (among HUD’s core missions is to expand home ownership) in pursuit of a costly climate change agenda. Rescinding this requirement would be an important step, and there likely are other green policies at HUD that need revisiting as well.
At the same time, Biden’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency finalized costly regulations impacting almost every major home appliance. When air conditioners and furnaces and washing machines and water heaters and dishwashers are all going up in price thanks to federal regulations, it starts to add significantly to housing costs. The appliance regulatory onslaught needs to be reviewed and dialed back as much as possible.
The Department of the Interior also plays a role. Far too much of America is owned by the federal government, including some lands suitable for housing but off limits to it. In addition, the Biden administration’s expansive interpretations of wetlands and endangered species provisions continue to keep much promising private lands from being developed. James Burling, Vice President for Legal Affairs at the Pacific Legal Foundation and author of the timely book, Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis, has documented numerous examples of housing projects blocked by such land use restrictions.
Presidential candidate Kamala Harris took an entirely different approach to housing affordability, leaving untouched all the costly red tape and instead promising an array of new subsidies, including a budget-busting $25,000 in down payment assistance to first time home buyers. In contrast, President Trump has embarked on a much more rational plan by taking on the many government-inflicted measures that are a big part of the reason housing became so unaffordable in the first place.