Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond was not among them, but 15 Republican attorneys general have gone to federal court in a lawsuit to fight the federal government’s “radical energy efficiency standards” that they say make affordable housing more expensive.
Representing Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia, the attorneys general were also joined by the National Association of Home Builders.
Their suit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S, Department of Agriculture was filed in the U.S. Courts’ Eastern District of Texas. The suit contends that a section of the Cranston-Gonzalez Act of 1990 is unconstitutional. The act was designed to help families afford down payments on homes and keep housing affordable.
In particular, the lawsuit raises constitutional questions about the Act’s “Energy Efficiency Standards” section, which imposes regulations when constructing new public housing and single-family and multifamily residential housing. The act requires certain kinds of lighting, ventilation systems, roofs and heat pumps during construction.
The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports the attorneys general say the statute is “now being stretched to the breaking point to support a green agenda that Congress never enacted.”
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