Will Doug Burgum Be Donald Trump’s Housing Czar?
Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week, the newsletter takes a look at what are shaping up to be the housing policy implications of the 2024 election.
That includes what one of Donald Trump’s latest cabinet picks might mean for the president-elect’s plans for “freedom cities,” Democrats’ housing-lite postelection recriminations, and one final Election Day loss for rent control in California.
Doug Burgum, Housing Czar?
Last week, Trump said he’d nominate North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum to be secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI) and serve as the chairman of a new National Energy Council that will “oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE.”
For all intents and purposes, that makes Burgum the incoming administration’s energy czar.
Given what Trump and Republicans have said they want to do on housing, Burgum’s perch at the head of the DOI could also make him the incoming administration’s de facto housing czar.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump’s major housing policy proposal was to build new homes on federal lands.
As early as March 2023, Trump was pitching the idea of holding design contests for 10 federally chartered “freedom cities” to be built on federal lands.
His eight-part plan for “mak[ing] America affordable again” likewise called for “open[ing] up portions of federal land for large-scale housing construction—ultra-low-tax and low-regulation zones—where millions of Americans will take part in settling these safe and beautiful communities.”
The 2024 Republican platform offered the slightly more modest idea of “open[ing] limited portions of Federal Lands to allow for new home construction.”
These proposals dovetail with Republican-sponsored legislation allowing the sale of Western lands currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for new residential development.
As head of the DOI (in which the BLM is housed), Burgum would be the cabinet secretary in charge of selling off those BLM lands. The North Dakota governor has also received plaudits from housing supply-siders for comments he’s made about the deleterious effect of zoning and the need to build more walkable, mixed-use communities.
Those GOP-backed bills to sell off BLM lands went nowhere while Democrats were in control of the Senate and the White House. But with an incoming Republican trifecta government, an electorate more concerned than ever about housing, and an interior secretary interested in housing costs, some version of Trump’s “freedom cities” might be an idea whose time has come.
Federal Control
To be sure, the federal government owns a lot of vacant land that could be used for housing. It currently owns 28 percent of all the country’s land, including about 50 percent of land in the West. In eight Western states here, the federal government owns over 40 percent of the land.
A lot of this land is already serving as military bases, national parks, wilderness monuments, and other protected uses that leave it off-limits to development. But a lot of that land isn’t.
About 40 percent of federal land in 12 Western states is managed by the BLM.
A 2022 report from Congress’ Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Republicans points out that much of this land is adjacent to growing Western metros like Las Vegas, Nevada, and Salt Lake City, Utah. These Western metros have also seen huge booms in home prices as a result of COVID-era in-migration.
That JEC report estimates that building on federal BLM land could add 2.7 million homes. This would overcome 14 percent of the country’s estimated housing shortage and 100 percent of several Western states’ housing shortage.
Interior’s Eternal Land Sale Process
Technically the BLM already has the ability to sell off its excess land for residential development, but the process is exceedingly complex and cumbersome. That’s by design.
As the BLM website notes, the bureau “does not offer much land for sale because its congressional mandate, enacted in 1976, is to generally retain public lands in public ownership.”
Federal law limits the BLM to selling off only those lands that are uneconomical to manage, were acquired for a purpose that has since been served, or are constraining the growth of existing communities and where there isn’t nonpublic land that could feasibly service that growth.
Theoretically, a lot of land might still clear these high bars. But before it can be sold off, the BLM has to identify it as excess land in its land use plans. Those plans take a long time to put together and require environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and rounds of public engagement with state, local, and private stakeholders.
An individual sale of a BLM-managed parcel also often requires NEPA review and numerous rounds of public notification and public engagement. Federal law requires the BLM to notify local and state governments of a sale so that they can zone the land. It must also notify adjacent land owners and the members of Congress whose districts cover the land to be sold.
Congress has the power to disapprove larger land sales.
In the late 1990s, Congress created a process for auctioning off BLM land in southern Nevada to private parties. Sales through this relatively streamlined process still take between 12 months and 18 months. As a result, only 17,000 acres of BLM land have been sold in the last quarter-century since this process was created.
The HOUSES Act
Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah) introduce
Article from Latest
The Reason Magazine website is a go-to destination for libertarians seeking cogent analysis, investigative reporting, and thought-provoking commentary. Championing the principles of individual freedom, limited government, and free markets, the site offers a diverse range of articles, videos, and podcasts that challenge conventional wisdom and advocate for libertarian solutions. Whether you’re interested in politics, culture, or technology, Reason provides a unique lens that prioritizes liberty and rational discourse. It’s an essential resource for those who value critical thinking and nuanced debate in the pursuit of a freer society.
