Washington, D.C., July 20, 2010 – The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) has asked the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Dr. Steven Chu, to delay the development and implementation of costly new energy regulations that would have a devastating impact on an already ailing manufactured housing industry and its mostly lower and moderate-income American families.

Under the Energy Conservation and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), responsibility for the regulation of energy conservation in manufactured homes was shifted from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – which comprehensively regulates manufactured housing construction and safety based on a careful statutorilymandated balance between regulation and cost to consumers — and transferred to DOE. The legislation directs DOE to establish new manufactured housing energy standards, by regulation, within four years of its enactment, based on the mandates of the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC).

In a July 16,2010 letter from MHARR Chairman, Edward J. Hussey, to Secretary Chu (copy attached), MHARR points out that since the enactment of EISA, manufactured housing production and sales have fallen drastically, to levels unseen since the infancy of the industry in the early 1960’s. This decline, fueled largely by the unavailability of either private or public-based consumer financing for manufactured home purchases, has already resulted in a catastrophic loss of affordable housing opportunities for lower and moderate-income American families and has badly hurt the manufactured housing industry and those who rely upon it, with the closing of nearly three-out-of-four production plants and correspondingly high job losses in all segments of the industry, including retailers, suppliers, communities, installers, transporters, insurers and many others.

Costly new DOE energy regulations would only make matters worse for the industry and consumers. By making manufactured housing much more costly to buy, such regulation would exclude many more lower-income consumers from the…

To read the rest of the News item and a copy of MHARR Senior Vice President Mark Weiss’s letter to Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy, download the MHARR PDF file here.