Attached , for your information, are comments filed by the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory (MHARR) on October 1, 2021 in connection with the federal Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee’s (MHCC) ongoing consideration of proposed manufactured housing “energy conservation” standards published by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in the Federal Register on August 26, 2021. The MHCC began its review of the DOE proposed rule at a teleconference meeting on September 23, 2021 and will continue its analysis of the rule — and development of responsive comments – at further meetings currently scheduled for October 8, 2021 and October 20, 2021. The attached comments are being submitted in connection with the MHCC meeting scheduled for October 8, 2021, and MHARR is currently preparing a third set of MHCC comments for the Committee meeting slated for October 20, 2021. At present, the deadline for submission of written comments to DOE on the proposed rule is October 25, 2021, although MHARR has filed a request for an extension of the comment deadline to December 27, 2021, due to the multi-faceted technical and cost issues raised by these new and unprecedented proposed standards.

MHARR’s October 1, 2021 comments address the complete and total unsuitability of the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) as the basis for manufactured housing energy standards, both substantively and procedurally. Substantively, the IECC is not a legitimate or valid basis for manufactured housing standards because, as DOE itself admits, that code – for its entire existence – has been developed specifically for site-built residential structures, without regard to any of the technical and affordability concerns that are unique to manufactured housing as stressed in the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000. Similarly, procedurally, the IECC is singularly inappropriate for manufactured housing as that Code – up to and including its 2021 iteration – has been voted-on and approved exclusively by state and local building code officials representing governments that in many cases, discriminatorily exclude or restrict the placement of manufactured homes. Thus, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) which instructs DOE to use the IECC as the basis for its manufactured housing energy standards, directly conflicts with all pre-existing federal manufactured housing law, which seeks to protect both the purchase price affordability and availability of manufactured housing  In addition to this fundamental issue, MHARR’s second comments also begin to address certain technical issues that will be implicated by the proposed DOE standards.

Based on initial responses to MHARR’s first set of MHCC comments, filed on September 15, 2021, industry members are clearly beginning to realize the devastating consequences that DOE’s proposed standards would have both for the industry and American consumers of affordable housing. Again, therefore, MHARR urges all industry members to submit comments to DOE to oppose these proposed standards, which discriminate against manufactured housing, violate existing federal law, and will severely undermine the purchase affordability of manufactured homes while excluding millions of lower and moderate-income Americans from the mainstream HUD Code manufactured housing market. To facilitate such participation, MHARR will continue to make its comments available to the entire industry in advance of the relevant MHCC and DOE deadlines.

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The Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform is a Washington, D.C.-based national trade association representing the views and interests of independent producers of federally-regulated manufactured housing.

Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR)
1331 Pennsylvania Ave N.W., Suite 512
Washington D.C. 20004
Phone: 202/783-4087
Fax: 202/783-4075

Email: MHARR@MHARRPUBLICATIONS.COM
Website: manufacturedhousingassociation.org