"Biden Moves To Mandate Greener Building Codes In One-Sixth Of New Houses"

"The White House estimated that those living in the new homes will save 35% on energy bills compared to those whose homes are built to current standards."

"The Biden administration plans to require new homes to be constructed to the nation’s greenest, most energy-efficient building codes to qualify for the federal loans that finance more than one-sixth of new houses sold in the United States.

The rule proposed Thursday would affect at least 168,000 new homes per year, 151,000 of which would be new single-family or low-rise multifamily units. Today, those units must be built to 2009 energy codes to be eligible for loans from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Federal Housing Administration or from the Department of Agriculture. The proposal would set the most recently written code, which came out in 2021, as the new baseline.

Fewer homes would be impacted by the new proposal if more states mandate the latest energy codes on their own, as several already have and 20 more are considering doing.

Federal researchers estimate that the 2021 energy codes would save 35% more energy than the currently required 2009 standard and nearly 9% more than the last version of the codes released in 2018. Adopting the 2021 code will save homeowners and renters between $972 million and $1.5 billion over time, and save ratepayers approximately $74 million per year, according to HUD’s calculations."

Alexander C. Kaufman reports for HuffPost May 11, 2023.

Source: HuffPost, 05/12/2023