The chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) criticized President Biden for invoking the Defense Production Act to boost production of electric heaters as part of the administration’s efforts to rid the housing market of gas heating appliances.
“The purpose of the Defense Production Act is to expand the supply of materials and services to protect the American people, not to advance a political agenda,” said Alicia Huey, who is also a custom home developer from Birmingham, Alabama. “Therefore, it is extremely disappointing that President Biden has elected to invoke the Defense Production Act in a blatant move to promote a policy agenda seeking to push American households towards electric heating in lieu of gas heating.”
Huey added there is an ongoing “extreme shortage of distribution transformers that have prevented the construction of badly needed housing developments, exacerbated the nation’s housing affordability crisis and frustrated recovery efforts in communities hit by natural disasters. NAHB has been calling on the administration to utilize the Defense Production Act to boost transformer output at existing facilities to address the growing supply chain crisis for distribution transformers that threatens the nation’s housing sector.”
Huey stated that she hoped the president “will reassess his priorities and provide funding under the Defense Production Act to jumpstart the production of badly needed transformers across the nation.”
