In this commentary, the speaker examines President Trump's newly signed executive order that ostensibly targets the high cost of housing. The speaker notes that the order calls for reduced local‑level regulations, a move that will likely be contested by the League of Municipalities, which fiercely protects its local authority. Because federal action may be limited, the speaker proposes two concrete federal policy changes to lower housing costs: (1) eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority over local and state housing and development decisions, arguing that EPA environmental overlays inflate costs and stifle supply; and (2) dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) role in setting flood‑plain designations that restrict where homes, roads, and infrastructure can be built. The speaker frames these actions as ways to trust local decision‑making, increase housing supply, and ultimately bring down prices.
Chapters
If you work in or around housing and real estate, you probably got super excited to see that one of the first executive orders signed by President Trump addresses the high cost of housing. However, many of y'all are busy and you didn't read the executive order. So you're curious about how he's going to bring down the cost of housing right away. Here's the TL;DR. Exactly, we don't have a lot of details yet. So let me just tell you that the first thing we've noticed is that there is a direct call to reduce regulations at the local level. Here's the spoiler alert on that. The League of Municipalities is going to fight that with every breath in their being because the League of Municipalities is very, very good at clutching tightly to their power at the local level. So if you're not going to win those battles, even by using dollars as a carrot and stick approach, you might wonder, well, what can we do at the federal level to reduce the cost of housing? I got two ideas for y'all. You want to hear them? Hey, President Trump, here's how you reduce the cost of housing. The first one, shut down the EPA. If the EPA had no bearing over what happens in our local and state state housing decisions and in development. We could make really good smart growth decisions at the local and state level because we know our areas better than the EPA does. And every time they come in with some stupid environmental overlay, it drives the cost of housing way up and even stops development. And as we know, it is the lack of supply that's causing the cost to go through the roof. The second thing that you could do, President Trump, why don't you go ahead and just wipe out FEMA? Because FEMA shouldn't have any voice in housing and development. But they have an outsized impact on deciding where the imaginary flood lines are and who can and can't build not just houses, but roads, bridges, and driveways. If you get those two agencies out of the way and trust the American people to make good decisions, we won't let you down. And by the way, thanks for the focus on housing.
