HR7597-119

In Committee

Affordable Housing Barriers Transparency Act

119th Congress Introduced Feb 17, 2026

Summary

What This Bill Does

This bill amends the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act annual report requirement. Each HUD annual report must identify significant regulatory barriers to affordable housing, using the definition from section 1203 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, and must include discussion and analysis of how those barriers could be reduced or removed. The bill does not directly preempt local zoning or change funding formulas; it creates a recurring federal transparency and analysis requirement inside HUD’s annual reporting.

Who Benefits and How

Affordable housing developers, renters facing supply constraints, local housing reform advocates, state housing agencies, and congressional housing committees benefit from regular HUD identification and analysis of regulatory barriers that may raise costs or delay affordable housing.

Who Bears the Burden and How

HUD, local governments with restrictive housing rules, state housing officials, and annual-report staff must collect information, evaluate barriers, analyze reduction strategies, and publicly discuss regulatory obstacles in HUD’s annual report.

Key Provisions

  • Requires HUD annual reports to identify significant regulatory barriers to affordable housing.
  • Requires HUD to discuss and analyze how identified barriers could be reduced or removed.
  • Uses the Housing and Community Development Act regulatory-barrier definition rather than creating a new local preemption rule.

Evidence Chain:

This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.

At a Glance

What This Bill Does

Requires HUD’s annual report to identify significant regulatory barriers to affordable housing and discuss how to reduce or remove those barriers using the Housing and Community Development Act definition.

Key Policy Areas

Housing, Government Operations, Regulation

Primary Purpose

Requires HUD’s annual report to identify significant regulatory barriers to affordable housing and discuss how to reduce or remove those barriers using the Housing and Community Development Act definition.

Policy Domains

Housing Government Operations Regulation

Bill-wide scope

Identified Gains
  • Affordable housing developers
  • Renters facing supply constraints
  • Local housing reform advocates
  • State housing agencies
  • Congressional housing committees
Model: codex-gpt-5 | Version: bill_summary_v2 | Source: ih
State housing agencies:
Affordable housing developers:
Local housing reform advocates:
Congressional housing committees:
Renters facing supply constraints:
Identified Costs
  • HUD
  • Local governments with restrictive housing rules
  • State housing officials
  • Annual-report staff
Model: codex-gpt-5 | Version: bill_summary_v2 | Source: ih
HUD:
Annual-report staff:
State housing officials:
Local governments with restrictive housing rules:

Legislative Progress

In Committee
Introduced Committee Passed
Feb 17, 2026

Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.

Feb 17, 2026

Introduced in House

Feb 17, 2026

Mr. Lawler introduced the following bill; which was referred to …

Stakeholder Effects

cui bono?

How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.

Real Estate
2 mentions across 1 clause
+2 positive

Affordable housing developers, Renters facing supply constraints

Government
2 mentions across 1 clause
+1 positive -1 negative

Congressional housing committees, HUD

Positive-direction: Congressional housing committees

Negative-direction: HUD

State & Local Government
1 mention across 1 clause
-1 negative

Local governments with restrictive housing rules

1/2
sections analyzed
Full impact breakdown

Bill Structure & Actor Mappings

Who is "The Secretary" in each section?

Domains
Housing Government Operations Regulation
Actor Mappings
"primary_beneficiaries"
→ Affordable housing developers, Renters facing supply constraints, Local housing reform advocates, State housing agencies, Congressional housing committees
"primary_burden_bearers"
→ HUD, Local governments with restrictive housing rules, State housing officials, Annual-report staff

We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.

Learn more about our methodology