Reg meant to fortify flood-zone homes

lending and construction would have exacerbated the problem, not helped solve it,” he said.

The brokers association also argued that new homes already under construction or undergoing “substantial rehabilitation” should be exempt from the rule because the rules were overburdensome and would add costs that “may negatively sway” homeowners from seeking HUD financing.

The proposed rules remained under active review when the Obama team was replaced by Trump appointees in January, and the mortgage broker representatives and builders repeated their objections.

In the second week of August, the mortgage executives and builders met with HUD officials in Washington, D.C. They were greeted by HUD’s newly appointed General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing Dana Wade, who made a point of telling them she had started her job a week earlier.

Prior to arriving at HUD, Wade was a senior fellow at the Charles Koch Institute, a right-leaning nonprofit run by Charles Koch. Koch and his brother David are wealthy energy moguls who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars fighting to kill government regulation of business.

As a Koch Institute fellow, Wade has advocated cutting multiple regulations, including dramatically watering down the DoddFrank Act enacted to tighten financial regulations after the housing market 2008.

After Wade left, other HUD officials told the mortgage broker executives that they would soon publicly announce that the proposed tougher flood risk management requirements for homes were dead.

About a week later on Aug. 15, Trump announced his sweeping infrastructure executive order, including this statement without explanation: “Executive Order 13690 of January 30, 2015 (Establishing a Federal Flood Risk Management Standard and a Process for Further Soliciting and Considering Stakeholder Input) is collapsed in 2007 and revoked.”

Coverage of Trump’s order focused on revocation of flood risk management rules for infrastructure such as bridges and roads. Officials did not mention the rules for homes had also been revoked.

The rules were proposed by the Obama administration to address climate change and strengthen future responses to floods. They were issued in response to the incredible damage inflicted by Hurricane Sandy (News front page, inset).

Zarrilli, who runs the city’s multiagency response to Sandy, said the Trump administration “withdrew really common-sense regulation for homeowners.”

“The federal government is sticking its head in the sand on the reality of climate change,” Zarrilli said.