HUD and USDA’s Six-Month Delay on Enforcing 2021 IECC Rule A Win for Housing

This post has been updated.

In a win for NAHB and the housing industry, the Trump administration has in the implementation of the Biden administration’s mandatory energy code, an important step forward to help ease the nation’s housing affordability crisis.

Specifically, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Department of Agriculture (USDA) will wait an additional six months before enforcing the compliance dates for adopting the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and ASHRAE 90.1-2019 as the minimum energy-efficiency standards for certain single-family and multifamily housing programs.

“This six-month pause by HUD and USDA is an important step forward to help ease the nation’s housing affordability crisis,” said NAHB Chairman Buddy Hughes. “Compliance with this rule would make it much harder for home builders and multifamily developers to build housing that is available and affordable for American families.

In fact, the Home Innovation Research Labs has found that compliance with the 2021 IECC can add more than $20,000 to the price of a new home, but in practice, home builders have estimated increased costs of up to $31,000.

The updated compliance dates are as follows:

NAHB commends the Trump administration for recognizing the importance of bringing down the cost of housing and will continue to pursue all avenues on the congressional, regulatory and legal fronts to overturn this harmful energy code rule.