The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) tells MHProNews that it has formally called upon the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Gov. Rick Perry, to withdraw its proposed manufactured housing energy rule.

MHARR says that the proposed rule is “rooted in climate change activism and advanced by energy special interests through an illegitimate and scandal-plagued regulatory process, threatens to needlessly destroy the affordability of manufactured homes” and “simultaneously excludes millions of consumers from the manufactured housing market – and from home-ownership altogether.”

According to MHARR, the proposed rule could increase the retail cost of an average multi-section manufactured home by $6,000.00 or more because regulatory compliance, testing and enforcement-related costs were never considered by DOE in developing the rule.

MHARR has been on the record as an opponent of both the proposed DOE rule and the “fundamentally-tainted administrative process” that led to its adoption.

In a November 2016 letter, the organization called for the DOE “to cease and desist from any further activity on the proposed manufactured housing rule pursuant to Congress’ November 15, 2016 warning to all federal agencies against finalizing any pending rules or regulations in the Obama Administration’s last days.”

“The DOE manufactured housing ‘energy’ rule is a textbook example of a destructive, big government ‘solution’ in search of a problem. Manufactured homes, comprehensively regulated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, already have median energy operating costs that are less than, or comparable to, other types of housing, according to the U.S. Census Bureau,” said MHARR President and CEO Mark Weiss.

“To single out manufactured homes and their mostly lower and moderate-income buyers for what amounts to a huge, regressive tax that would devastate both them and the industry in order to satisfy special interests, is incomprehensible, indefensible and precisely the type of baseless, damaging federal regulation that President Trump has vowed to eliminate.”

The full letter from Weiss to Secretary Rick Perry is linked here. ##

 

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Submitted by RC Williams to the Daily Business News for MHProNews.