The President signed Executive Order 14394 on March 13, 2026, directing federal agencies to review and change rules the order says raise the cost of building homes. The order was published in the Federal Register on March 18, 2026.
The order states that layers of regulatory barriers, slow permitting, and costly mandates have slowed building, limited development, and raised the price of new homes. It sets a policy of reducing regulatory barriers to building homes and of using taxpayer dollars in a way that promotes housing affordability.
The order directs the Secretary of the Army, acting through the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to review and revise requirements tied to stormwater, wetlands, lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water. The stated aims are to reduce housing construction and ownership costs, speed agency decisions, ease property-tax loads, and make homes easier to insure, where suitable and allowed by law. The requirements named include the construction stormwater permit, federally issued pollutant limits for water bodies, municipal stormwater permits, and federal standards for permits to place dredged or fill material in waters of the United States, including standards for states and tribes that take over that permitting.
The order also directs the secretaries of Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation, and the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to consider eliminating rules and reforming programs that constrain residential development. The order singles out affordable single-family homes and suburban and exurban neighborhoods. Named items include Economic Development Administration guidelines on development density, a Transportation Department pilot on reconnecting communities, a housing-department program on obstacles to housing, and finance-agency guidelines on manufactured-housing loans and low-balance mortgages.
Separately, the secretaries of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Energy, and the finance-agency director, are directed to reform and, where appropriate, eliminate energy-efficiency, water-use, or alternative-energy requirements on housing, including manufactured housing. The order says that work is to go as far as practicable and stay consistent with law. It includes manufactured-housing conservation standards, efficiency standards for housing financed by those two departments, residential energy codes the Energy secretary reviews, and water and energy standards tied to the finance agency’s duty to serve underserved markets.
The order directs the chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality to give agencies guidance on the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. That guidance is to cover categorical exclusions, a tool that can spare some projects a full environmental review, in a way that exempts or reduces burdens on housing construction, preservation, reuse, and related work such as roads, water, and sewer projects. The chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation is directed to develop guidance that keeps reporting on housing and related infrastructure under the National Historic Preservation Act no more burdensome than necessary.
Within 60 days of the order, the Housing and Urban Development secretary, working with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, must develop and issue regulatory best practices for state and local governments. Those practices cover faster permitting, limits on mandates that raise construction costs, fewer restrictions on manufactured or modular housing based only on how it is built, and removal of limits on housing beyond urban centers, such as growth boundaries. The Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation secretaries and the Environmental Protection Agency administrator are then directed to revise regulations, guidance, grants, and related practices to advance those best practices, within their authority and consistent with law.
The Treasury secretary and the Housing and Urban Development secretary are directed to jointly evaluate ways to align federal programs with Opportunity Zone tax incentives to expand investment in single-family home construction. The order says that review is to include lawful ways to link grants, financing, or other incentives with funds that develop and sell those homes. The two secretaries are also directed to assess coordinating those incentives with the New Markets Tax Credit in census tracts that qualify under both programs.
The order says it does not impair lawful agency authority or the budget office’s functions on budget and legislative proposals. It must be carried out consistent with law and available appropriations, and it does not create a right enforceable against the United States. Publication costs are to be paid by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The order does not say it revokes or amends any earlier order.