|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced on Friday that the state would be joining a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Supported by 15 states with Republican attorneys general and the National Association of Home Builders, the suit alleges that Congress requiring HUD and USDA regulations to equal or surpass the CABO Model Energy Code and International Energy Conservation Code is effectively an unconstitutional delegation of power to the private sector.
The regulations at issue apply to new construction of single family and multifamily homes subsidized by several HUD and USDA programs, including ones that support public housing, supportive housing for the elderly, and first-time homebuyers.
Responding to the proposed changes in April, Lowell Ungar, the federal policy director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, said “it makes no sense for the government to help people move into new homes that waste energy and can be dangerous in extreme temperatures.”
Citing estimates from the National Association of Home Builders, the AGs’ lawsuit states that “for every $1,000 increase in the median price of a new home, an additional 106,031 American households are priced out of being able to buy that home.” Scholars at unaffiliated organizations, like The Pew Charitable Trusts and City Journal, have also found that increases in home prices and rents contribute to increases in homelessness.
Research from the University of Alabama’s Alabama Center of Real Estate shows that rental prices have continued to increase significantly in many metro areas in the state over the last year. And while the homelessness rate in Alabama is relatively low compared to other states, it did increase between 2023 and 2024 according to HUD data.
“Thanks to Biden’s skyrocketing inflation, Americans are feeling the pinch when comes to cost-of-living and housing. Biden’s bureaucrats at HUD and USDA then thought it was wise to impose energy-efficiency requirements that stand to cost low-income homebuyers over $30,000,” Marshall said in his statement. “That’s ridiculous.”
In June, Marshall joined a similar lawsuit against the National Highway Traffic Safety Association. That suit challenged increases to mileage requirements which it stated would end up “increasing costs on families and undermining the reliability of the electric grid.”
Alabama’s Republican members of Congress have also been vocal critics of federal environmental regulations. In July, all six Republican House members from Alabama voted to bar the Department of Energy from approving new regulations that would increase prices for consumers. (The bills passed the House but not the Senate.)
However, despite the AGs’ claims, and just like the departments that approved the regulations contested by the NTHSA lawsuit and the failed bills, the USDA and HUD maintain the new regulations would actually save residents money: “Energy cost savings are estimated to increase by approximately 6.4 percent.”
And while, as Marshall’s press release pointed out, the agencies believe the regulations will increase the cost of constructing a home by several thousand dollars, they also predicted an average net life cycle cost savings of $15,071 for single family buildings. The corresponding estimate for multifamily buildings in Alabama was between $5,705 and $6,275 per unit, depending on who owns the building.
Echoing his past promise to “keep fighting [the Biden administration] until the moving vans arrive,” Marshall stated that “even as Biden hides in his office during the final days of his administration, my colleagues and I will fend off their ill-advised and illegal acts.”
