On Friday, May 19th, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced it will delay the compliance date for the Energy Conservation Standards for Manufactured Housing.
The announcement moves the compliance date from May 31, 2023 until 60 days after the DOE establishes enforcement procedures for single section homes. We would expect the DOE to complete that process in the fourth quarter of this year at the earliest. The compliance date will be extended to July 1, 2025 for all other homes. DOE decided on this delay after hearing from hundreds of MHI members.
MHI pursued a multipronged strategy to stop implementation of the DOE standards, and Friday’s announcement from the DOE is the culmination of this successful strategy.
In its notice of delay, DOE said it gave substantial weight to the comment letters of MHI, Cavco, and Skyline Champion; numerous state Manufactured Housing Associations (Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington (NHA), Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association (CA), and Wisconsin); and over 500 campaign form letters – all a part of the coordinated strategy implemented by MHI.
The DOE also referenced letters from Presidential Candidate and Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee Senator Tim Scott (SC) and the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing to the DOE in favor of the delay and criticizing the Energy Rule’s unworkable standards that increase the cost of the only form of unsubsidized affordable housing in America without meaningful energy cost savings to consumers. MHI has worked closely with both offices throughout this process.
Despite this positive development for the industry, there is more work to do. We must ensure that HUD is the sole authority over manufactured housing construction, to ensure an issue with conflicting standards from different agencies never happens again.
Earlier last week, Congressman David Kustoff (R-TN) and Congresswoman Terri Sewell (D-AL) introduced H.R. 3327, the Manufactured Housing Affordability and Energy Efficiency Act of 2023, in the House of Representatives. This bipartisan legislation clarifies and reaffirms the longstanding role of HUD as the sole regulator of federal manufactured housing construction standards.
Congress must hear from all sectors of the manufactured housing industry about the urgent need to change the statute. Today’s action by the DOE affirms the importance of HUD’s role as the sole regulator for manufactured housing. Join MHI's efforts and tell your Representative to support H.R. 3327. To participate in the Call to Action click here and follow the simple steps on MHI's website. MHI wrote a letter that you can send by simply inserting your home address and clicking submit.
