Rep. Flood at The Washington Times: Trump’s Emergency Housing Declaration Could Curb Costs

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made waves recently when he said President Trump was weighing a housing emergency declaration. When you hear about federal emergencies, it’s typically related to a natural disaster or pandemic. A federal declaration for housing would be a novel approach to the ongoing problem of housing affordability, and there’s no question that we have a housing crisis in this country.

From 2010 to 2022, home prices rose 74% while wages rose 54%, eroding consumer purchasing power. In recent years, higher interest rates, burdensome local property taxes and, in some states, skyrocketing home insurance premiums have made things even worse.

The importance of addressing America’s housing crisis can’t be overstated. Housing is the No. 1 way many Americans build wealth. It’s at the core of the American dream, an aspiration that is slipping away for many, according to recent polling by The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Trump is right to consider aggressive action on this issue, and an emergency declaration could help solve the problem. As he weighs an emergency declaration, here are a few things I hope to see included in any action he might take.

First, the only way to effectively tackle housing costs is to increase housing supply. Demand-side “solutions” do nothing but subsidize some renters and homebuyers at the expense of others while leading to higher housing costs overall. To lower costs, we need to build more homes, rehabilitate old ones, and promote innovative solutions that make building at scale more efficient.

One way to drive down costs is to tackle regulations that make it more difficult to build new homes. In this area, Mr. Trump has a huge opportunity to cut red tape. At the federal level, there are four major regulatory drivers of the cost of housing, items I like to call the “Four Horsemen of the Housing Apocalypse.” Environmental reviews that delay projects, Davis-Bacon requirements that drive up labor costs, Section 3 requirements that make it harder to hire contractors to build homes, and “Build America, Buy America” requirements that drive up material costs.

I am working in Congress to address each of these issues as they relate to the HOME Investment Partnerships Program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I have also discussed these issues at length with the Trump administration beyond their application to just one Housing and Urban Development program.

While we continue work on this issue in Congress, there’s much the administration can take from the regulatory side to address these problems head-on. Making regulatory changes to the application of the National Environmental Policy Act to federal funds going toward homebuilding would make a significant difference in housing affordability and restore the American dream.

I’m excited to see what the president does here, and I look forward to continued collaboration with his administration on tackling the housing cost crisis in the coming months.

Rep. Mike Flood is a member of the House Financial Services Committee and Chairman of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee. He also serves as Chair of the Republican Main Street Caucus.