The National Association of Home Builders have joined 15 state attorneys general to file a complaint in the Eastern District of Texas to stop the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from adopting new energy efficiency standards for certain single-family homes and multifamily housing programs.
HUD and USDA last year announced plans to adopt a set of requirements from the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) that define minimum levels and specifications for building insulation, windows, heating and cooling systems, lighting and other items that use energy. Certain new single-family homes and multifamily housing will need to meet the energy building code requirements for their mortgages to be insured by the federal agencies. Builders of homes and multifamily properties have a schedule to meet the requirements that can be as long as two years.
Home Innovation Research Labs estimated that the energy efficiency requirements would add $22,572 to the price of the average new home. However, in practice, homebuilders say the new standards will add about $31,000 to the price of a home. These increasing costs will result in fewer homes being built and exacerbate the nation’s ongoing housing shortage. The lawsuit also maintains that the energy requirements could constrict the housing supply and increase the number of homeless people in the country.
“Along with 15 state attorneys general, NAHB is the only private entity in this lawsuit seeking to halt HUD and USDA from adopting the 2021 IECC because home builders can document how this egregious regulation will needlessly raise housing costs and hurt the nation’s most vulnerable home buyers and renters, said NAHB Chairman Carl Harris. “This ill-conceived policy will act as a deterrent to new construction at a time when the nation desperately needs to boost its housing supply to lower shelter inflation costs. It is also in direct conflict with the current energy codes in the majority of jurisdictions around the country.
“Our lawsuit seeks to show that granting HUD and USDA authority to insure mortgages for new single-family homes and apartments only if they are built to the 2021 IECC or ASHRAE 90.1-2019 was done in an unconstitutional manner.”
NAHB is joined by attorneys general from the states of Utah, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia in the lawsuit.
