The Cut Red Tape for Housing Act: Congresswoman Laura Friedman LIVE on Radio Abundance!

The following conversation was featured on Radio Abundance, Episode XXIV: The Cut Red Tape for Housing Act. Laura Friedman is a United States Congresswoman from California and a member of both the Build America Caucus and the YIMBY Caucus.Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

Congresswoman Friedman, welcome to Radio Abundance! You’ve been on Radio Abundance before, but this is our first-ever live episode!

We got an early scoop that this bill might be coming and chatted about doing an emergency podcast today to be timely, and we thought, "hey, as long as we're going to talk to you anyways, let's do it live and try a new format and see who shows up!”

I mean, we're going to have the same conversation either way!

So, this is a lot of fun. We're extremely excited to talk to you again, and we’re also extremely excited about the new bill. And always extremely excited to try a new, fun, live format.

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Yeah, it's exciting! It's kind of edgy. I like it.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

Super edgy…

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Dangerous!

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

As is this bill, maybe? A little bit? Dangerously helpful?

I'm going to ask you about it in a second, but I want to set this up both for the audience and for you. First of all, you have been on Radio Abundance before, so for anybody that wants to know your origin story, how you got here, or how you think about this: go there!

Today, we're going to talk about the bipartisan Cut Red Tape for Housing Act.

And what I want to say to you is: you know, we have folks in our listener community who are maybe the foremost experts in their field in this sort of thing, and also folks who are coming to this movement for the first time and trying it out and seeing if they like it.

So, I bring that up (and talk so much off the bat) only to set up that, in a moment, I'm going to ask you, "What is the Cut Red Tape for Housing Act?" But, I actually want you to tell me twice. First, I want you to tell me for somebody who is joining this movement and curious and inclined to it. The layman's big picture. High level.

And then, I want to both liberate and encourage you to get real deep in the wonky details here. Because, I promise you, this is the space where you're going to be rewarded for that level of nuance and statistical precision.

So, with that intro done…

Congresswoman Friedman, what is the Cut Red tape for Housing Act?

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

What this bill does is: it makes all infill housing categorically exempt from having to do a NEPA review (a review from the National Environmental Quality Act).

That would mean that, if you're building housing that has federal money in it—

(Because housing that doesn't have federal money generally does not go through a NEPA review unless there's certain things happening in terms of its location or its impact on an environmental resource. Generally, your infill housing in an existing city like Los Angeles or Boston or Memphis wouldn't have to go through NEPA unless it was receiving some federal funding.)

Generally, those projects are Affordable Housing that have pass-throughs from the federal government, often through the state, which trigger the NEPA review. That's a review that can take 12 months. It can take 15 months. Generally, they're approved. However, they take time, and they cost money: usually a couple hundred thousand dollars for Affordable Housing projects that already exist on a financial knife’s edge in terms of making projects pencil.

So, we want to get rid of that amount of time that these projects are being stalled. We've heard stories from developers about losing financing or potentially losing financing because of delays with NEPA reviews. Certainly, $200,000 could go back into creating more units, a better building, and lots of other things rather than doing a duplicative environmental review that's generally going to be approved anyway.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

This does remind me a little bit of some of the action in California. We just had Michael Tubbs on the podcast. He's running for Lieutenant Governor. As he spoke a little bit about CEQA reform, he mentioned, "if you've done a report before and the squirrels were fine, they're probably going to be fine even though you've changed the project a little bit."

That principle of “we've actually already checked, and we don't necessarily need to rerun the whole process” -- I think it's interesting.

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

And, let's be clear: this bill only impacts infill housing. It has to be a site that's already been developed. We're not talking about going into a city and taking a park or a community garden and then, without doing any looking at environmental impact, building a building.

We're talking about taking a parking lot or an old donut shop or a strip mall and redeveloping it as housing. That should be, generally, an environmental positive, not an environmental negative! Because, of course, if you don't build the housing near jobs and schools and businesses, you end up building housing oftentimes in actual green spaces out in areas that haven't been developed before.

So, there should be a net positive to the environment from these projects. There's no reason for them to have to go through NEPA, especially since they're going through other environmental reviews. We also exempted projects that would require the demolition of a historic structure. And, as I said, these are previously developed lots that are in urban areas.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

I do think this is such an important point for the movement as a whole to keep coming back to, right? Which is: if you love your suburbs — and even more so if you love your rural area — the best way to protect both is to let dense areas be dense! Right? The densification of the suburbs and rural areas, perhaps some of that is population growth (for however much longer that lasts), but quite a lot of that is people being exiled from cities that are not pulling their weight.

So, this kind of infill housing, where you've already got places that are developed and that are fairly dense and that are a very natural place to build more housing — it seems ridiculous to stop that, and thank you for taking away some of those ridiculous barriers!

Let's define infill for a second. I am looking at the fact sheet, and it says, “either 75% of the site's perimeter adjoins parcels developed with an urban use, or 75% of land within a quarter mile radius of the site is developed within urban use.” So, that's how we're defining the proximity to a relatively dense urban environment. Then, I'm seeing “no larger than 20 acres, located on vacant or underutilized land that was previously developed for an urban use.” So, that is how we are defining infill. And you mentioned the demolition carve outs?

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Yeah. We wanted to make sure that we addressed any concerns that people might have going in as we introduce this bill. We want to not miss something that might lead to objections. We want to make sure it's a net positive for communities.

And so, we use a lot of the definitions that are in the new California law for CEQA exemptions for infill housing as a viewpoint and as a guide because they went through a year-long process of being in discussion with environmental groups and with cities. I'm never one to miss taking material from people that have done their homework! And it seemed like a perfect time to introduce NEPA reform.

I've worked on these issues for my time in the California legislature where I served for eight years. I have worked on and done my own bills to reform CEQA (which is the California equivalent of NEPA), particularly with an eye towards housing.

So, I've worked in this space, and when I ran for Congress, a lot of what I talked about was bringing that same work to the federal space and looking for the opportunities to do streamlining and make our processes make sense and not be barriers to the things that we need.

We know what we need to do, and we need to do it quickly. That's what this bill is about.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

It seems like — and it's shining through this conversation — you've both written a bill that is designed to have an extremely positive impact, but also a bill that you think can pass. That's ringing through how you've learned from California and learned from what I might call handling objections ahead of time.

I am curious how you see the politics and future and timeline of this? IThis is a bipartisan bill, so I'm curious about Representative Edwards: his interests and your relationship. I'm curious, especially for folks who maybe aren't deep Congress watchers, what are the chances of passage? What is the process? How long might that take?

I'm curious how you would game out the road from here.

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Well, I only got elected in November and got sworn in in January, so I'm still learning a lot about this process! But I'm very encouraged by having bipartisan support. I'm part of a new caucus called the Build America Caucus, and so is Representative Edwards, so he seemed like he was a natural person for me to approach. He had questions about the legislation, and I'm really very honored that he chose to join us and co-lead this. It's great to be able to have support from across the aisle already because, if you don't have that in this particular Congress, it's very hard to get legislation passed!

That gives me a lot of hope that we can get this through. Now, I know that, in Congress, they are looking at doing permit reform across the board. But, I also wanted to make sure that we did something that was specific to housing and that did address legitimate concerns that people have around the environment. I'm not sure what shape that permit reform bill is going to take, and I think it's important from the environmental perspective to introduce legislation that, yes, wants to move housing forward quickly, but also respects legitimate environmental concerns, which is why we did a bill that had guardrails around it and includes exemptions to the bill. It includes NEPA review for things like historic resources, travel resources, and greenfields.

I don't know if we're going to get that in the permit reform bill, but I'm hoping that, if they see this bill, that maybe they will adopt this bill into whatever they're doing. Or, this bill can stand alone as its own piece of legislation. As long as it gets passed into law and we remove these barriers and get rid of this red tape that is so needless and really slowing down and costing more money to Affordable Housing developers, I'd be happy with any way that we get that done.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

You know, I want to ask you about the environment in a second because that looms heavily here. I want to know how you would frame for everybody what NEPA is and the background of the National Environmental Policy Act.

And, of course, and this came through in the last podcast we did together, a huge amount of your motivation here — and, I think, this movement's motivation — is to do right by the environment. And to stand up and raise our hands when there is an environmental law that is hurting the environment.

So, we will talk about that in a second. But I want to quickly ask you about caucuses. It was very interesting to me when you mentioned that being a part of the Build America Caucus with Representative Edwards helped you identify him as a potential bipartisan partner — and, frankly, the importance of being bipartisan now, and that, for passage, if Republicans are going to be in the majority, you kind of need one of them...

I bring that up because we have talked to both Congressman Harder, who founded the Build America Caucus, and Congressman Robert Garcia, who founded the YIMBY caucus. It is so cool that these caucuses exist, and it's also, like, okay, now what? What does that mean? What does a caucus do?

Here, it sounds like you've already named one very specific function, which is just to identify and connect you with allies to get stuff done. So, I am curious for a second what those caucuses existing has meant for the work? As somebody who's joined one, what does it mean for you? What does it do for you to be a part of that?

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

For me, it's a couple of things. It's certainly a signal of my priorities and my values to be a member of both of those caucuses. But, more importantly, it does show me right away who my allies are when it comes to this work.

And so, we were able to very quickly secure a co-lead who is a Republican co-lead because we went to members of the caucus. Hopefully that also gives him the trust that I have similar goals. And then, I'm hopeful that the caucus will get behind the legislation and come on as co-sponsors and that we will have a whole group of legislators pushing together.

You know, it's a new caucus. And I'm new to Congress! But, it's my hope, too, that the caucus itself has a package of bills (this being one of them) that we put forward as caucus bills. We haven't had that conversation yet because we're so new and people are still introducing their legislation for the year, but I would love to see the Build America Caucus and the YIMBY Caucus start to have a package of bills that are known to be caucus-supported bills.

I was a member of a couple of caucuses in the California legislature, and we did that every year, where we had our core bills and then we had bills that we supported. It was very helpful for people to know what the values were of that particular set of legislation. It helped for people on the outside who were stakeholders (for instance, people in the Abundance movement) to know what the key pieces of legislation are and what to focus their attention on. Because it takes a village. It takes people on all sides pushing for legislation to get through.

And when you have that, those people coming to legislators all around the country and saying, "I heard about this bill. This would help get Affordable housing built in your district. I'm a stakeholder in your district. I'm a resident. I want to see this pass,” it just gives them one more reason to vote yes.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

I find it very cool when you reflect on the idea that you are new in Congress, telling that story of: you're there and you know what bills are good, but now you actually do have to figure out how this works — both interpersonally and logistically — and how to get stuff done.

Maybe I don't watch the right TV shows, but that to me is cool to openly acknowledge that!

As somebody who has lot of policy chops who now has got to figure out how you're going to get results in this new space: who's helping you? Who do you go to? How do you find out how to get stuff done and be effective? Who feels like your ally and mentor in Congress?

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Well, certainly my amazing team! You know, when I was interviewing people to be on staff, having these goals and an understanding of housing policy and a desire to see more housing built — and not just housing, but more clean energy, more energy transmission, all the things that we need to live a better life and to make things more affordable for people — was key in my mind.

I purposefully brought people on that were YIMBYs, to be honest about it, both in my district office and in my capital office. So, that's a big part. That's the start, because I have people I can sit around with and talk about ideas and who are looking actively for ideas to help with this movement, as you put it, and this goal.

And also, I have certainly folks in my district that I know from my work doing very similar legislation at the state level in California. I have a housing advisory group, and several of those people are folks that advise me on a lot of the legislation I did around parking reform and ADUs and everything else that I've worked on and want to keep working on.

And then, in the legislature, of course we have the representatives you mentioned. Robert Garcia, Josh Harder. There's a whole bunch of people who also really lean into this issue. And it's growing. As the housing affordability crisis is growing around the country, we see more and more members of Congress wanting to find solutions.

Housing is becoming unaffordable in places where even recently it was affordable. Young families today don't feel that they will ever be able to buy a home. That's a fundamental change from the way things were 20, 30 years ago. Maybe even 15 years ago. This isn't just California policy. It's not just Los Angeles policy. It's really national policy.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

Looking at this bill: I have fact sheets and everything I've been able to consume today in the last couple hours, but I do not have the text of the bill. So I'm very curious about the scope of both the bill and about NEPA in the sense that, in a lot of the chatter today, a phrase that keeps coming up is Affordable Housing. That phrase is not, though, in the fact sheet, so I am curious if you can flesh out for me? Both in terms of NEPA generally and also in terms of this reform. We've talked a little bit about what it applies to and doesn't in terms of infill and urban areas and previous uses and things like that, but in the spectrum of Affordable Housing and who's building the housing, what is in scope and not in scope?

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Unlike CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, which affects — even though single family housing's categorically exempt and housing kind of is and kind of is not through a whole patchwork of exemptions — it's a much broader review process, whereas NEPA is limited to projects that have federal funding.

So, you're generally not going to be talking about your market rate housing unless they're in the context of a larger project that has some federal funding. You can imagine — I'm just going to throw it out — like, a baseball stadium or some project that has some federal nexus or federal funding. Or, more likely, a train station or a piece of transit infrastructure that might have housing attached that might trigger a NEPA review because of the federal funding.

A regular market rate apartment building does not go through NEPA. The projects that go through NEPA are ones that have some federal funding — any federal funding — and that's generally affordable housing, meaning housing that's built with federal subsidies and then rented through covenants to low-income individuals for reduced rent and for rent that would be cheaper than they could get from market rate housing. So, that's why we refer to Affordable Housing, because this is generally going to help with the creation of subsidized affordable units.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

Can you handicap for me what to expect in terms of the creation of subsidized affordable units in the coming years? Not even in terms of what this bill makes possible so much as the appetite of the federal government right now to build subsidized affordable units. And, if we win (in what is a very long time from now), can you gauge for me, numerically, the past, present, and what you might expect from the next few years in terms of the actual appetite to build subsidized, federally-funded affordable units?

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Well, it's hard for me to say because I don't communicate directly with this Administration…

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

You don't text them?

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

You know, the Trump Administration, it seems to me that they are not very keen on funding housing in general, and they've made overtures at closing out Section 8.

Certainly for the things that keep tenants in place and a lot of the programs that come through our CDBG financing that are meant to assist tenants who are on the verge of homelessness, they've made a lot of overtures towards cutting these programs.

And I can tell you, from speaking to our local housing authorities, they're really, really afraid of the impact on homelessness from X-ing out a lot of these assistance programs.

You know, we're still working on the budget for this year, so it's hard to say what's actually coming down the pipe. I also have not been able to really take the temperature of the majority party's interest in funding subsidized affordable housing.

And look, you're not going to subsidize housing your way out of our housing crisis. And not everybody qualifies for subsidized housing. You have to be low-income under certain definitions to get into one of these units. But, on the other hand, there's definitely a subset of the population that needs extra help and that's not going to be able to afford a lot of market rate housing.

You know, folks coming out of the prison system. People who are in recovery. People who are severely disabled. A lot of our seniors end up on very, very fixed and low incomes and can't afford market rate housing in our more expensive urban areas where they grew up and where they have their connections and their ties.

So, there's a lot of people where subsidized housing is really a lifesaver. Recent immigrants. You could point to a lot of populations that need that kind of housing. We used to have a better system to create it in California through our redevelopment agencies that paid a lot of dividends back in terms of also redeveloping blighted areas and polluted areas. But we lost that when the state got rid of that particular tax increment method of financing housing. So now, developers are cobbling housing costs together through a series of tax credits and other federal programs. And so we really do need an expansion of those programs, even while we encourage market rate housing, which we also need because there's a lot of middle class people who also need housing and who are being priced out of the market!

So, there's going to be different strategies that we need to employ to get the housing that we need. And subsidized housing is definitely one of them.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

You know, JD Vance and I text each other on Signal all the time, and he's told me very clearly that he thinks that once we deport all the illegal immigrants and then all the legal ones and then all of the citizens that made fun of him, housing prices will go down, so I think we'll be fine…

But, it does occur to me that, even if the Trump Administration builds nothing in the next few years, there's still two giant ramifications to this bill and passing it now, even if the Administration doesn’t take advantage of it.

Which is to say: a future Democratic Presidency, while picking up quite a lot of pieces, will be able to build. As somebody who says “Yes in my backyard!” to both market-rate housing built by the private sector and housing built by the public sector, that excites me. You are making that easier for a future Democratic President.

But also, I think of the message this sends to states. Whether that's California or New York or Illinois or any states that are thinking about reforming right now, this is another little dent in the universe and crack in the dam, showing that the momentum is on our side and that this is the right thing to do from a policy perspective.

So, even if Trump is not helpful here, it does seem like the signal this sends and the future it sets up is also valuable in addition to the immediate impacts and potential this bill unleashes.

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Yeah, I mean, you've got a law here that's a good law with NEPA. But, when it's spilling over and creating barriers for exactly the kind of housing that everybody says we need, which is affordable housing for low-income people, seniors, disabled, and others, for no reason — for absolutely no environmental gain that anybody can point to — we're reforming that law.

This bill will lower the cost of developing affordable housing. It will speed up the process at a time when we know we desperately need this housing to keep people from slipping into hopelessness.

This will make it more affordable. That money should be going into these buildings. It shouldn't be going into hiring consultants to write environmental reviews that have already been done through other processes. It's completely red tape. It's the kind of red tape and bureaucracy that everybody hates.

So, I think this bill's a no-brainer. It should be easy, and I'm hoping it will be.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

Very nice. I did promise we would tee you up on the environment. So, let's get into this now:

We are talking about the reform of an environmental law, and we have pretty strong feelings about how this will help the environment.

Give us a sense of the stakes of this and the impact you think this will make? Why, in terms of outcomes and values and morals, is this the right thing to do for the world we live in?

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Sure!

This makes it easier to build on previously developed infill sites, sites in our cities, and on land that was already developed and needs a new use. We've got a lot of those around our communities. Often they're blighted. Closed. Rivers of concrete. Closed strip malls. Obsolete office buildings. They're eyesores, and they can be magnets for crime and blight.

This would speed up the process of turning them into something that we need, which is places for people to live. It's a benefit to our cities. There's no downside! It's certainly not harmful to the environment. But if we don't do it, we know what happens. Not only do more people struggle with affordability for housing, but also people face homelessness. And, when we do build, if we don't allow building in our cities and in infill sites, people will build in places that haven't been developed before, and that's when you have real environmental impacts. That's when you're building on land that's habitat or on land that's covered in trees, out in the suburbs, where you have to now drive much further from your job, causing polluting air, car congestion, and all those things that suburban development outside of cities creates.

I'm an environmentalist. And I'm a huge supporter of environmental laws. And I am not a supporter of suburban sprawl. It's un-environmental! It's a terrible use of land! It causes traffic, congestion, and smog. And it eats up precious open space and habitat for animals who are already struggling.

So, this makes a lot of environmental sense. And it's my hope that environmental groups will support it on that basis.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

Sounds like a lot of bad stuff is caused by not building housing! We should probably build housing!

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Look, at the same time that I've authored numerous bills to speed up housing production at every level, from new market rate down to affordable housing, I have authored key bills around wildlife connection, connectivity around habitat protection, around biodiversity, around reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and clean energy. To me, it all fits together. I don't see these goals at all as being at odds. I think that, if you care about the environment, you should care about building the housing we need in the right places, and you should also care about better ways of moving people around that are more sustainable than individual car trips.

I think that it's a triad. We should all be thinking about that. If you're thinking about the environment, you should also think about where you're going to grow your cities and how to do it in a sustainable way and how to move people around. So, I think we need to be thinking about these issues much more in a holistic way.

I've done policies to try to link that. Just to go into the Wayback Machine from a few years ago: when I worked on parking reform, to me, it was about the environment. It was about better ways of supporting public transportation, using land better, and building the housing we need, all in one piece of legislation.

So, I look at this in very much the same way. It's about taking away an environmental review that is actually stopping something from happening that's a huge net benefit for the environment.

NEPA is a great and groundbreaking piece of legislation that we should protect. But we should also, as environmentalists, be very clear about fixing the things that aren't working about it so that it can't be weaponized against the environment and repealed!

If you're thinking strategically, the last thing you want to do is have a nonsensical use of NEPA that its opponents can use to justify getting rid of it.

My attitude is: it's a great and important piece of legislation. Let's fix the things that we know need to be fixed so that we can protect the parts of NEPA that we absolutely need to protect our environment.

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

Hey, don't think for one second taht I was going to let you get out of here without plugging your work on parking and cars!

Folks, if you're watching this or you're hearing about Congresswoman Friedman for the first time, I think you're going to like what she's done before on parking and cars…

You know, I was once talking with a member of Congressman Scott Peters’ team, and they called him an “OG YIMBY.” So that has entered my vocabulary, and I would say that Congresswoman Friedman is an “OG” and an innovator and pioneer of the Parking Wars.

I've got to get you out of here, so, look, give us a couple seconds of final thoughts? And also, where do you go from here? I mean that literally: this is announcement day, literally where do you go from here?

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Well, I would say that, number one, my message for the movement is to create a big tent. I've had a lot of success at bringing environmentalists on board with this agenda. I come out of the historic preservation world, so I'm always careful to respect the goals of people who love old buildings and want to retain the character that really important old buildings give. I've worked on preserving buildings like the Cinerama Dome and the Capitol Records building and the Case Study houses in Los Angeles, and I don't see that at all being at odds with creating the landmarks of the future. So, rather than throw rocks at each other, let's bring these movements together — the I Love Buildings movement along with the environmental movement, who understand that we need to have these coalitions and find ways of building consensus and moving forward.

We've been able to do it in California with a lot of success. And, by the way, working also with our friends in the labor movement, who also are incredibly important to bring on board, so that this is a benefit for all of these major stakeholders. That would be my closing message!

I really appreciate your having me here today. It's exciting. When I got the invitation, I was really excited! And for those of you I don't know, it's nice to actually meet you!

We are going to be announcing more housing bills. We're working on a package of really cool housing bills, including one that's even bigger than this...

So, stay tuned! A lot more to come!

And that's a teaser… You're not getting another word out of me on that!

Steve M. Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America:

Look, I've got to build hype, too!

So, long as you let us cover that with you, we'll do the tease and the whole hype and buzz process, and we can let things trickle out when the time comes…

We are honored and flattered and blown away that you would carve out 30 minutes of a pretty important day to spend with us and dive into this and give us your perspective, both as an innovator and a pioneer in making Abundance happen and also as somebody who's truly accomplished on this and is fairly new in Congress and now is making it happen and learning the ropes and getting stuff done.

So, this has been super cool. Thanks for joining us on Radio Abundance! Onwards and upwards and on with your day!

United States Congresswoman Laura Friedman:

Thanks so much!

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