Legal action aimed at the U.S. Department of Energy in regard to new standards the department set in motion for the energy efficiency of manufactured homes has advanced in the courts but not before a section of the claim had been dismissed.
The Manufactured Housing Institute and the Texas Manufactured Housing Association filed the suit in February. Earlier this month, the Federal Court for the Western District of Texas considered a DOE motion to dismiss but allowed a majority of the claim while dismissing a portion of the filing that asserts DOE had failed to properly consider enforcement rules for any would-be violations.
“Part of our initial case was that the DOE failed to have a testing, compliance and enforcement regulation to complement the building standards,” MHI CEO Lesli Gooch said. “DOE realized that this was a problem, so it is now trying to finalize a rule it proposed late last year, after suspending the compliance date on its standards so that a testing, compliance, and enforcement rule could be formulated.
“MHI told the court that we would probably challenge those rules once they became final as finality is a necessary prerequisite to a challenge,” she said. “Of course we can’t know what the ultimate rule will be so we can’t say what our challenge would be.”
MHI and TMHA can amend their complaint after the DOE has completed its enforcement rule making process.
Remaining assertions in the filing, including that DOE had overstepped its regulatory boundaries by failing to consult with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — the industry’s primary regulator.
The court neglected DOE’s position that a ruling should wait until the the department has finished its enforcement rulemaking process, stating that “waiting until a new compliance date to bring this suit constitutes a sufficient hardship for the manufactured housing industry.”
MHI said it is dedicated to working toward a solution through:
- Continuing to work with regulatory agencies to delay implementation of the DOE standard until there is alignment between DOE and HUD regulations.
- Ensuring HUD’s Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee’s (MHCC) proposed changes to incorporate the DOE standards into the HUD code are finalized.
- Supporting legislation to guarantee HUD is the primary regulator for all construction standards for manufactured housing.
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