Decades of regulatory barriers, including restrictive zoning, burdensome permits, and other forms of red tape, have made housing less accessible for millions of Americans. Reducing these obstacles would give people more choices and strengthen communities. A freer housing market empowers individuals and supports the ability to build stabler and more fulfilling lives.
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Blog
Third-party reviewers expand permitting capacity without expanding government
Housing permitting reform has become one of the few housing policies to attract support across the political spectrum. States as politically diverse as…
Study
Permitting Reform for a Freer and More Prosperous Nation
Contents Special Advisors The Importance of Permitting Reform Part 1: 11 Principles for Permitting Reform Part 2: Statute-by-Statute Analysis for Permitting…
Blog
The ROAD to Housing Act’s Moving to Work expansion still misses the bigger housing issue
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is Congress’s most sweeping housing legislation in years. As I previously covered, the legislation deserves…
Search Posts
Comment
CEI Comments on DOE’s Proposed Appliance Standards Process Rule
I. Introduction The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is a policy and analysis organization committed to advancing the principles of free markets and limited…
Blog
Third-party reviewers expand permitting capacity without expanding government
Housing permitting reform has become one of the few housing policies to attract support across the political spectrum. States as politically diverse as…
Study
Permitting Reform for a Freer and More Prosperous Nation
Contents Special Advisors The Importance of Permitting Reform Part 1: 11 Principles for Permitting Reform Part 2: Statute-by-Statute Analysis for Permitting…
Blog
The ROAD to Housing Act’s Moving to Work expansion still misses the bigger housing issue
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is Congress’s most sweeping housing legislation in years. As I previously covered, the legislation deserves…
Blog
Time’s up: Why housing permits need a shot clock
Governments routinely impose deadlines on businesses and individuals. Miss a tax filing deadline or fail to renew a license on time, and you face…
Blog
How permitting is a hidden tax on housing
Imagine being a housing developer so entangled in permits, legal challenges, and environmental reviews that it takes five decades to have a housing project…
Blog
Mamdani’s road to housing hell is paved with rent freezes
As housing affordability becomes increasingly elusive, there are few things more politically alluring than telling voters their rent will not increase. It was a…
Blog
The deregulatory de novo pony in the housing bill
Ronald Reagan once told a story about an optimistic boy placed in a room filled with “quite a quantity of what they clean…
Blog
A road to housing: Two green lights and a few wrong turns
Following Senate passage by an overwhelming bipartisan vote and amid efforts to expedite House consideration, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act…
Blog
Affordable manufactured housing versus unaffordable climate regulations
The Biden administration had a field day piling on one costly climate-related regulation after another, not knowing – or caring – that affordability would…
Blog
HUD and CFPB help housing by restoring free speech
Thanks to the commendable actions of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), April has been…
The Mortgage Note
Federal Court Rejects Costly Green Housing Policy
The Biden administration’s obsession with climate change has contributed to the housing affordability challenges Americans face today, and there are many harmful green…
Blog
FAR too restrictive: Time to repeal floor area ratio limits
In cities across the world, fights over housing affordability come down to a simple question: how much can be built on a single lot?…
Blog
End minimum parking requirements and let the housing market drive
It may sound counterintuitive, but some significant housing policy is tucked away in the parking sections of local zoning codes. A minimum parking requirement…
Blog
The Senate housing bill’s road to socialism
In the last week of February, I expressed hope that members of Congress would “embrace free-market proposals to advance opportunities in the housing…
National Review
House Passes Bill Pushing Back on Federal Appliance Meddling
They’re the regulations that literally hit home, and rarely in a good way. The Department of Energy sets energy efficiency standards for…
Blog
Minimum lot sizes, maximum costs
When Americans think about the housing affordability debate, they tend to picture cranes, lumber prices, or mortgage interest rates. It is certainly important to…
Blog
Politicians should push deregulatory initiatives – not investor limits – to boost housing affordability
Both President Trump and Democrats in Congress seem to blame the high costs of housing on certain groups of real estate investors and to…
Blog
House to consider two bills that would place limits on federal appliance meddling
It is time for Congress to place limits on costly and intrusive federal meddling in home appliances. Two House bills coming up for a…
Blog
Cut the steel, cut the cost: Why Congress is right to scrap the chassis mandate
If buying a home in the US feels more expensive, that is not merely your imagination. A Harvard University study found that national single-family…
News Release
Housing bill aids affordability through deregulation
Last night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed by 390-9 the bipartisan Housing for the 21st Century Act. CEI scholars highlight the bill’s…
Blog
Greener housing is costlier housing
There are many policy ideas for addressing rising housing costs, ranging from good ones like tax code changes that bring more homes onto…
Fox News
Trump successfully turns off crazy Biden era regulations on your home appliances
President Donald Trump has sharply diverged from his predecessor on nearly every issue, perhaps most of all concerning federal home appliance regulations. The Biden…
News Release
Trump ban on institutional investors will harm housing affordability
President Trump today called for a government ban on “large institutional investors” purchasing single-family homes. While the ban may be aimed at making…
Blog
CEI study says it’s time to unplug federal appliance regulations
Stoves, air conditioners, ceiling fans, water heaters, light fixtures, refrigerators, washing machines, furnaces, dishwashers, and more – nearly everything that plugs in or fires…
News Release
Report: Government regulations on household appliances increase costs, worsen performance
A new Competitive Enterprise Institute report explains how needless government regulations have made everyday household appliances cost more and perform worse. “Appliance regulations…
Study
Free the Appliances!
Introduction The Department of Energy’s (DOE) appliance efficiency standards program has been in place for decades, subjecting nearly every major home appliance to multiple…
Blog
A bad court decision on furnace regulations strengthens the case for a legislative fix
On November 4, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed down a decision that is bad news for millions…
Blog
The war on gas stoves is not over – but the Trump administration is fighting back
The Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced that it is rescinding federal grants for changes to state and local building codes that would discourage…
Blog
EPA proposed rule cools down costly air conditioner regulation
The Biden administration inflicted many bad appliance regulations on homeowners, but the costliest of them all was an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule…
WSJ Opinion
How to Beat the High Cost of Cooling
President Trump doesn’t hide his dislike of federal appliance regulations, from water-stingy shower heads that he says make it difficult “to take care of…
Comment
In Defense of Consumer Choice: CEI Supports DOE’s Withdrawal of Overreaching Regulation on Miscellaneous Refrigeration Products
Department of Energy: Energy Conservation Program: Proposed Withdrawal of Determination of Miscellaneous Refrigeration Products as a Covered Consumer Product Notice of Proposed Withdrawal…
Fox News
Trump’s Energy Department is taking back our home appliances from berserk bureaucrats
In quite possibly the sharpest regulatory U-turn thus far in 2025, the Trump Department of Energy (DOE) is proposing to roll back home appliance…
News Release
DOE adopts CEI view on appliance water and energy limits
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released new rules on appliance energy and water limits Friday that agreed with the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (…
The New York Times
Make Dishwashers Great Again?
The New York Times cited CEI’s expert on the appliance industry “Federal limits on water and energy use have made appliances slower…
News Release
Trump executive order restores consumer choice for home appliances
In 2018, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) petitioned the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to adopt regulations allowing dishwashers that complete a full…
Blog
Trump is right to target showerheads, but he’ll need Congress to finish the job
President Trump is taking another pro-consumer step, this time on showerheads. His April 9th executive order, Maintaining Acceptable Water Pressure in Showerheads, reinstates…
News Release
Senate votes to repeal Biden rule against water heaters
Today the U.S. Senate voted on a joint resolution to repeal a Biden-era Energy Department rule imposing unwarranted energy efficiency restrictions on consumer…
Blog
Senate should support S.J.Res.4 repealing Biden’s anti-consumer water heater regulation
The Biden administration gave us far too many anti-consumer appliance regulations, and some of the worst were ones supported by manufacturers angling to create…
Fox News
Biden’s leftover regulations will decide your next light bulb unless Trump stops them
Americans have shown a real dislike for the wave of federal regulations targeting home appliances. Even more infuriating is the fact that…
News Release
Congress passes resolution repealing Biden energy rule against freezers, walk-in coolers: CEI statement
Congress successfully passed a resolution repealing a Biden Energy Department rule that would have imposed needless restrictions on walk-in coolers and freezers. CEI energy…
Blog
Trump cancels Biden’s heat pump crisis
It isn’t easy figuring out the single most ridiculous Biden administration climate policy, but its declaration that electric heat pumps are critical to…
City Journal
Home Appliance Regulations Are Out of Control
President Trump hates federal home appliance regulations as much as President Biden loved them. And now Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has taken the…
Blog
Congressional Review Act can cancel three bad appliance regs
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is the easiest way for Congress to block some of the bad regulations enacted under the Biden administration. A…
Blog
Trump sketches out a battle plan on housing affordability
Housing affordability has become a front burner issue, and President Trump spared no time setting out his plan targeting the government regulations and red…
Op-Eds
Affordable Housing – How Donald Trump Could Accomplish More Than Jimmy Carter
The passing of Jimmy Carter sparked much praise for his post-presidency good deeds, particularly his decades of volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity building…
Blog
Gas stoves are great
The recent approval of a ballot initiative in Washington state to protect natural gas access for consumers has me ruminating on the gas stove issue.
Blog
Another last-minute Biden appliance regulation – this time tankless water heaters
At this point, it is easier to name the major home appliances that have not been hit with bad regulations from the Biden administration…
Fox News
Six household appliances that have taken heat from Biden’s crackdown on regulations
Fox News cited CEI’s expert on product quality “What these mandates – what these standards do is enforce a level of efficiency…
Blog
CEI submits comments on latest Biden administration dishwasher proposal
The Biden administration’s efforts targeting gas stoves received a lot of attention in 2023 and sparked an angry public backlash, but many other…
