Build America, Buy America: HUD Opens Comment Period to Address Affordable Housing Concerns

Last Thursday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a Request for Information (RFI) seeking public input on the domestic availability of certain products used in HUD-financed affordable housing programs. The RFI responds to rising criticism that HUD's Build America, Buy America (BABA) waiver process has significantly delayed affordable housing construction nationwide. HUD stated the goal of its RFI is to ensure it has comprehensive, up-to-date information on the domestic market, including the availability of BABA-compliant products and product categories.

The 2021 Build America, Buy America Act, enacted as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), imposes a domestic-content procurement preference on federally funded infrastructure projects, including affordable housing. Generally speaking, agencies may not obligate funds for an infrastructure project unless the iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials used are produced in the United States. HUD's implementation of BABA extends these requirements to housing-related projects involving construction, rehabilitation, or real property work.

For affordable housing developers, BABA compliance can impose significant burdens, including procurement issues, supplier certification, documentation obligations, and waiver processing delays, all at a time when financing stacks are already tight and schedules are driven by tax-credit, grant, and loan deadlines. However, BABA is not absolute. Agencies may waive the preference where domestic products are unavailable, where compliance would be inconsistent with the public interest, or where domestic sourcing would increase costs by more than 25 percent. HUD has also adopted general waivers for smaller or urgent projects.
The RFI encourages manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and other industry stakeholders to submit comments on whether the products needed to build, modify, maintain, and repair housing are readily available domestically. This information will support HUD's ongoing implementation of BABA and its assessment of domestic manufacturing capacity.

Bipartisan concern over BABA's impact on housing production has been building in Congress. Senators Collins, Hyde-Smith, and Shaheen have pressed HUD to expedite waiver processing, while Reps. Flood and Goodlander introduced the Build Housing Affordably Act, which would temporarily pause HUD's BABA enforcement pending an impact assessment. These efforts reflect a shared view that current domestic-sourcing mandates are creating bottlenecks rather than advancing their intended policy objectives.

HUD opened a 30-day public comment period to inform its assessment of whether additional guidance, rulemaking, or other action is needed to ensure effective implementation of the Build America, Buy America Act requirements across HUD's programs. Anyone submitting comments is encouraged to provide relevant data, evidence, and specific examples in response to the questions in the RFI. Industry participants who have seen the impacts of the Build America, Buy America requirements or waiver process in the affordable housing space are encouraged to provide comments. The comment period is open until July 20, 2026, and can be found here on the Federal Register.