Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner said the Trump administration plans to rescind Biden-era energy mandates that he says add $31,000 to the cost of building a home.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Trump administration is preparing to roll back Biden-era green energy building mandates in an effort to lower housing costs and ease pressure on builders, according to U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner.
Turner told The Midwesterner that the administration plans to rescind regulations tied to the 2021 revisions of the International Energy Conservation Code, which expanded building energy-efficiency requirements as part of former President Joe Biden’s broader climate agenda.
The rules have affected federally supported new construction because failure to meet the standards can result in the denial of federal funding.
Turner said the compliance costs have made new homes more expensive at a time when Americans are already facing high home prices and limited supply. According to Turner, the mandates add about $31,000 to the cost of a home.
The HUD secretary said those costs come on top of other regulatory expenses already built into the price of new housing.
“When you add thousands on top of $100,000 of regulations already in a single-family home, where the home prices of $400,000 and above in America, that’s unsustainable for builders,” Turner said.
The administration’s planned reversal is aimed at reducing the cost burden on builders and buyers. Turner said the Biden-era requirements worsened affordability challenges by raising construction costs and contributing to the housing shortage.
The 2021 energy code revisions were intended to increase efficiency in new buildings, but critics in the Trump administration argue that the mandates made housing less attainable by forcing builders to absorb higher expenses or pass them on to buyers.
The planned rollback comes as the administration seeks to address housing affordability by reducing regulatory costs associated with construction.
Turner framed the effort as part of a broader push to make homebuilding more feasible in a market where single-family home prices often exceed $400,000.
The administration has not yet provided a final timeline for rescinding the rules, but Turner said the goal is to remove mandates that he says have added costs to new homes and made the housing shortage worse.
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