Trump’s New Housing Supply Executive Order Tells States to Get Out of the Way

Stephen Slivinski and Ryan Bourne

President Trump’s new housing executive order is better than much of Washington’s recent affordability discussion because it starts from the right premise: homes are expensive in many places because states and localities have made it too hard to build more of them. 

The order does recommend some worthwhile federal deregulation on wetlands, stormwater, NEPA, historic preservation, and other costly housing mandates. But there is also an instruction that HUD...