Senator Schmitt Sends Letter to Kansas City Council Regarding Council’s Adoption of Green Building Codes 

WASHINGTON – Today, Senator Eric Schmitt sent a letter to the Kansas City Council regarding the Council’s recent adoption of the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code, which are building standards contrived by the International Code Council: 

“Keeping these onerous building codes might placate climate activists and similar parties for the time being. In the long term, however, these regulations will continue to constrain Kansas City’s housing market and ding the pocketbooks and wallets of Missouri families who are just trying to get by. It’s time for the Kansas City Council to do the right thing and undo these green standards so that Missouri’s working families and homebuyers can finally have some breathing room when it comes to achieving the American Dream,” said Senator Eric Schmitt. 

BACKGROUND:

• On October 13, 2022, the Kansas City Council voted to adopt the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), which are building standards contrived by the International Code Council. One of the main reasons the city council approved these new regulations was because they were a requirement to receive some of the combined $400 million provided by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.
• Instead, these building codes have created detrimental effects for builders and residents alike, all for the sake of pursuing a radical climate agenda that puts misguided and bureaucratic agenda first while placing Missourians last. If these codes are maintained as they currently are, they will only continue to obstruct housing affordability for Kansas City residents. 
• It is not just elected Republicans who are calling out the council’s newest building codes. Democratic councilman Wes Rogers has astutely noted how, before the IECC was formally adopted, Kansas City typically issued eighty-five permits to build single-family homes per month. But in the entire first quarter of 2024, the city only issued nine. In fact, from February 2023 to February 2024, single-family home construction permits in Kansas City, Missouri decreased by 74%, while those in the surrounding Kansas City metro simultaneously increased by 179%.
• Studies have also found that IECC compliance could add as much as $30,000 in additional costs towards new building construction and maintenance. As Will Ruder, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Kansas City, recently told The Beacon, “It’s very labor intensive to satisfy all of those requirements and build at the volume that the market is calling for.” 

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