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 policies that need to be undone. The Trump administration is taking an ax to several of them, and it just received a big boost when a U.S. District Court repealed a measure burdening low-income and first-time home buyers.
Specifically, on March 5th an Eastern District of Texas decision vacated a 2024 requirement from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that new homes qualifying for federally-backed mortgages must comply with the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). Thankfully, the court in Utah v. HUD found the agency’s actions in violation of the law.
The IECC is a spare-no-expense assault on residential energy use – for example, by requiring far more insulation than makes sense and necessitating costlier appliances. A number of environmental organizations advocated for the IECC’s building code dictates, saying they would ensure that “low-income homeowners and residents are prioritized in a climate-aligned future.”
But even HUD conceded that the requirements would reduce the number of new homes by 1.5% and raise construction costs by an estimated $2,800 to $6,800, according to documents filed with the court.
And those figures may be on the low side. The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), which filed the case along with 15 state attorneys general, estimated costs between $9,600 and $21,400, likely well in excess of any additional energy savings. For perspective, the NAHB also estimates that every $1,000 increase in the median price of a home disqualifies about 156,000 potential buyers.
Fortunately, the court took notice that the underlying law places limits on the authority of the HUD to adopt these provisions, namely that the agency must first “make a determination that the revised codes do not negatively affect the availability or affordability of new construction…” Despite its own evidence of such negative impacts, HUD went ahead anyway – all too typical of the climate craziness that prevailed in Washington at the time.
Read the full article at The Mortgage Note