Today, Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-3), during a Financial Services Committee hearing entitled: “Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Housing Administration,” called on HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge to advocate for the removal of unnecessary regulations driving up the cost of homes.

Rep. Luetkemeyer: “You said that the main impediment to building new housing was regulation. So, you, as someone in the housing-lending business, the mortgage business, what are you doing to advocate for a way to reduce some regulations or a way to work with local communities, local cities, local counties to find ways to reduce regulations? What are you doing to advocate for home builders to be able to build homes more affordably?”

Sec. Fudge: “I meet with the home builders regularly. I meet with mayors, governors regularly. We talk about things like finally looking at zoning and planning, rules that have been around forever. Looking at ways we can build houses that create more density. But we don’t have the authority to tell a community that they need to do something.”

Rep. Luetkemeyer: “Madam Secretary, you’re an advocate for housing. You can make a big difference. You can push.”

Watch the full exchange HERE.

Background: Local zoning restrictions, like prohibitions on multifamily residences, limitations on manufactured housing, and stipulations for minimum lot sizes, constrain the housing supply and elevate the costs of constructed housing. These regulations, in addition to the president’s failure to limit spending, have spiked the cost of housing in the U.S.