February 26, 2025
VIA FEDERAL EXPRESS
Hon. Chris Wright
Secretary
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20585
Re: Manufactured Housing Energy Standards and Enforcement Regulations
Dear Secretary Wright:
I am writing on behalf of the members of the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR). MHARR is a Washington, D.C.-based national trade organization representing the views and interests of producers of manufactured housing subject to regulation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) pursuant to the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act (42 U.S.C. 5401, et seq.) as amended by the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (2000 Reform Law), and by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) pursuant to section 17071 of the Energy independence and Security Act of 2007 (42 U.S.C. 17071) (EISA). MHARR’s members are primarily smaller and medium-sized independent producers of manufactured housing located in all regions of the United States.
On January 23, 2025, MHARR wrote to both you and HUD Secretary Scott Turner regarding pending Biden-Era “energy conservation” regulations for manufactured homes (copy attached as Attachment 1 hereto). In that communication, we noted that both the “standards” portion of the DOE energy regulation — published as a final rule on May 31, 2022, but not yet been implemented, and the “enforcement” portion of the regulation, published as a proposed rule on December 26, 2023 – could not proceed to implementation and were required to be delayed pursuant to President Trump’s January 20, 2025 Regulatory Freeze Executive Order (EO). We also asked, at that time, that the “Trump Administration disavow and withdraw” both of these regulatory actions based on multiple fatal defects that irretrievably tainted and contaminated the DOE administrative process leading to their promulgation.
Since the time of that communication, DOE, in a filing before the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, in litigation concerning the manufactured housing energy standards, styled Manufactured Housing Institute v Department of Energy (Civil Action No. 23-cv-00174), has stated that “DOE intends to initiate rulemaking to propose a further delay to the Final Rule’s compliance date for Tier 2 [manufactured] homes.” (See, Attachment 2 hereto).
While MHARR, in that “rulemaking,” will not object to a further delay of the May 31, 2022 DOE manufactured housing energy standard, per se, it must be stressed, emphasized and understood by DOE, that the May 31, 2022 standard is itself fatally flawed, arbitrary and capricious in violation of applicable law, wholly in violation of both substantive federal manufactured housing law and Trump Administration policies concerning “climate” mandates, and should (and must) be rejected and withdrawn by DOE as a final action, and not merely “delayed.” As MHARR’s filings in the administrative record of both the standards rule and the enforcement proposed rule amply demonstrate, the entire DOE standards development process leading to both such actions was inherently, fundamentally and irretrievably tainted and infected by multiple instances of unlawful activity and conduct by DOE (and arguably others as well). As a result, there is no path or method available to DOE to somehow “rehabilitate” either the May 31, 2022 standards rule or the December 26, 2023 proposed enforcement rule, and both should (and must) be abandoned without any implementation.
Further, there is no extant judicial mandate requiring that the said standards be promulgated. While the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in litigation styled Sierra Club v. Perry (Civil Action No. 17-2700) entered a consent decree on November 21, 2019 requiring, inter alia, that DOE “sign a Federal Register notice proposing standards for energy efficiency in manufactured housing pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1707(a)(1)” by “not later than May 14, 2021,” that decree was vacated upon motion of DOE itself and the underlying case dismissed by a minute order entered on October 19, 2022.
Accordingly, and insofar as manufactured housing energy standards as posited by DOE would decimate both the manufactured housing industry and American consumers of affordable housing, particularly lower and moderate-income American families who rely on HUD Code manufactured housing as their only means of obtaining homeownership — needlessly adding thousands of dollars to the purchase price of a new home — DOE should reject any and all such “standards” and allow HUD to address any relevant issues through the statutory Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee (MHCC). At a time when affordable housing and homeownership is already in critically short supply, DOE should not make matters worse through baseless regulatory burdens.
Thank you in advance for your consideration, we look forward to meeting with you soon to address this crucial matter.
Sincerely,
Mark Weiss
President and CEO
cc: Hon. Donald J. Trump
Hon. Scott Turner
Hon. Russell Vought
HUD Code Manufacturers
