WASHINGTON — Building on their legislative momentum following the passage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing law, the bipartisan Build America Caucus has officially released a sweeping new policy package known as the Build More Agenda. Comprising more than 60 distinct policy proposals, the initiative targets the persistent systemic barriers hobbling American construction, with an intense focus on unlocking housing supply, lowering building costs, and modernizing federal financing infrastructure.
Founded in 2025 and led by Representatives Josh Harder (D-Calif.) and Celeste Maloy (R-Utah), the caucus was created to push back against the bureaucratic gridlock and regulatory friction that lawmakers argue has steadily eroded America’s capacity to construct vital infrastructure. According to a press release issued on October 5, the new agenda directly addresses "the dysfunction that has kept us from building the things that are integral to American life."
For Representative Harder, the unveiling of the Build More Agenda represents a crucial next step in an ongoing legislative campaign. The goal of these new proposals, he explained, is to jump-start a national dialogue about the future of federal housing policy once the provisions of the ROAD to Housing law are fully integrated.
"We don’t want to rest on our laurels, and we’ve proven that there’s a bipartisan coalition of folks that want to do more pro-housing legislation," Harder said in an interview. "This is a set of ideas that get people excited and thinking about what can come next, and our hope is to flesh it out over the next couple of months and work on it next Congress."
While the caucus remains deeply invested in seeing the implementation of the ROAD law through to completion, members recognized that several critical sectors of the housing ecosystem were left largely unaddressed. Among the most pressing gaps are development financing, restrictive local zoning ordinances, complex and disparate building codes, and the sluggish machinery of federal housing administration systems.
Financing, in particular, emerged as a top priority for the caucus because the previous legislation did not offer comprehensive solutions to the capital constraints currently strangling the market. As persistent macroeconomic pressures and elevated interest rates continue to push borrowing costs upward, developers are finding it increasingly difficult to secure the reliable capital needed to break ground on new projects.
High interest rates are directly punishing housing starts across the nation, creating an environment where developers cannot pencil out projects without predictable and affordable capital streams. Harder emphasized that addressing this capital drought presents a vital opportunity for bipartisan intervention in the upcoming congressional term.
To inject liquidity into the market and bridge financing gaps for multifamily and residential developments, the Build More Agenda proposes establishing a federal revolving loan fund. According to Harder, this mechanism could be designed and implemented at virtually no net cost to the federal government.
The mechanics of the proposed fund rely on an initial congressional seed investment. Under the plan, these initial dollars would be deployed to issue below-market-rate interest loans to housing construction projects. As those loans are paid back over time, the returned capital would flow directly back into the fund, creating a self-sustaining financial engine capable of continually backing new construction without requiring constant new appropriations from Capitol Service budgets.
In tandem with restructuring capital access, the caucus is setting its sights on reforming the inner workings of federal housing bureaucracy. Specifically, the agenda targets multifamily lending inefficiencies by calling for a thorough modernization of Department of Housing and Urban Development systems and underwriting procedures.
A major bottleneck identified by the caucus is the exceptionally slow pace of the Federal Housing Administration’s financing process, particularly for infill housing developments that utilize vacant or underutilized parcels within already built-up urban areas. While conventional private financing can typically move from application to closing within a window of two to three months, securing an FHA loan can routinely drag on for an entire year.
Harder pointed directly to outdated technology and bureaucratic inertia within HUD as the primary culprits behind these prolonged timelines. By overhauling and streamlining the FHA process, the caucus hopes to shave months off development cycles, saving builders immense carrying costs and accelerating the delivery of much-needed housing units to the market.
More Housing Construction Ahead?
Beyond financing and federal bureaucracy, the Build More Agenda takes direct aim at the spiraling costs of physical construction. Over recent years, the expense of putting a shovel in the dirt has climbed continuously, driven by supply chain pressures, labor shortages, and regulatory compliance expenses. Much of the caucus’s new legislative framework is intentionally engineered to lower these foundational barriers and make actual physical building more economically viable.
One of the most ambitious and potentially transformative measures highlighted by the caucus is the creation of "right to build zones" tailored for multifamily housing. Under this voluntary incentive structure, local and state jurisdictions that choose to opt-in would receive enhanced federal support and prioritization. In exchange, these communities would agree to reform their local zoning codes to permit multifamily housing construction "by-right," bypassing discretionary, highly politicized approval processes as long as the proposed developments meet pre-established, objective criteria.
If successfully enacted into law, Harder believes this measure could trigger a dramatic acceleration in the rate of housing production nationwide. By framing the policy around federal incentives rather than federal mandates, the caucus hopes to spark a constructive competition among local governments—effectively creating a race-to-the-top framework that rewards jurisdictions for welcoming new residential development.
The caucus is taking a similarly assertive stance regarding transit-oriented development. Federal taxpayers invest billions of dollars every year constructing and maintaining mass transit networks, including highways, bridges, heavy rail lines, and bus rapid transit systems. However, restrictive local zoning laws frequently prevent communities from building dense housing in close proximity to these taxpayer-funded transit hubs, leaving stations surrounded by low-density sprawl and preventing citizens from fully realizing the environmental and economic benefits of transit accessibility.
Harder questioned the logic of continuing heavy federal infrastructure investments in communities that actively block housing growth around those very transit arteries. From the caucus’s perspective, aligning federal transit dollars with pro-housing local policies is a matter of basic fiscal responsibility and common sense.
Regulatory fragmentation represents another major hurdle targeted by the agenda, particularly regarding building codes. National model building codes are updated on a strict three-year cycle to incorporate safety innovations and efficiency standards. However, many local municipalities lack the administrative bandwidth, financial resources, or technical expertise to regularly evaluate and adopt these updated codes. The result is a chaotic, fragmented patchwork of municipal regulations across neighboring jurisdictions.
This regulatory hodgepodge significantly inflates development costs by preventing builders from utilizing standardized designs and scaling their operations across regional or statewide footprints. Harder noted that this complexity hits the apartment construction sector especially hard, given that multifamily building codes are inherently more intricate and demanding than those for single-family detached homes.
The extensive policy package does not stop at zoning and building codes. The Build More Agenda also incorporates targeted tax relief provisions designed to stimulate residential construction activity, opens up opportunities for housing developments to be built on surplus government-owned property, and proposes strategic reforms to the long-standing Buy America laws. While the Buy America mandate ensures that projects receiving federal financial assistance support domestic manufacturing, the caucus wants to adjust specific parameters to prevent unnecessary supply bottlenecks for residential builders.
Additionally, the agenda addresses logistical hurdles that might seem niche to casual observers but carry immense weight for developers on the ground. One specific proposal seeks to streamline federal and state regulations surrounding the transportation of mass timber—an increasingly popular and sustainable building material utilized in modern multifamily construction. Navigating the conflicting rules and permitting requirements when moving timber products across state lines currently creates an unnecessary regulatory maze, and the caucus aims to smooth out these logistical friction points.
While housing supply and construction efficiency form the anchor of the Build More Agenda, the policy package also reaches into several other vital areas of public policy. The broad-based initiative touches upon topics spanning healthcare, general infrastructure, transportation networks, domestic power production, scientific research funding, childcare availability, and overall government administrative capacity.
As the Build America Caucus spends the coming months refining the specifics of the proposals, members are positioning the agenda as a comprehensive blueprint for the future. By initiating the conversation early, lawmakers hope to build a durable, cross-party consensus that can translate these ambitious ideas into actionable legislation when the next Congress convenes.
