Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Housing Tariff Exclusion Act”.
Housing Tariff Exclusion Act
A BILL
To require a process for the exclusion of certain articles used in home constructions from certain duties, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Sense of Congress
It is the sense of Congress that—
the United States is facing a severe housing affordability crisis;
the median price of a single-family home exceeds five times the median household income, putting homeownership out of reach for millions of hardworking people in the United States;
one of the primary drivers of the housing affordability crisis is a shortage of supply of homes;
impartial analysis shows that the United States housing supply is 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 units short of long-run demand;
overcoming the housing affordability crisis requires significant investment in home construction in the United States;
a wide range of products are necessary in the construction of a new home, ranging from lumber and cement to electrical and plumbing fixtures to cabinetry and drywall;
while many of those products are produced in the United States, the United States lacks sufficient production capacity for all relevant products to meet the urgent need for home construction, while some essential products are not manufactured in the United States at all;
according to nonpartisan research, tariffs on key building materials as of the date of the enactment of this Act will add billions of dollars to the cost of home construction in the United States over the coming years; and
those added costs will reduce home construction and make it more expensive for people to buy or rent homes in the United States.
Sec. 3 Process for exclusion of certain articles used in home construction from certain duties
Establishment— Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Commerce shall establish a process pursuant to which United States entities and associations of such entities may request the exclusion of covered articles from covered duties.
Implementation— In implementing the process established under subsection (a), the Secretary shall exclude from the imposition of a covered duty a covered article if—
the covered article is a critical homebuilding product; or
the Secretary determines—
the imposition of the duty on the article would increase the cost of home construction in the United States; and
the exclusion of the article can likely be administered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Determination of increased home construction costs— The Secretary shall determine under subsection (b)(2)(A) that the imposition of a covered duty on a covered article would increase the cost of home construction in the United States if imposition of the covered duty would cause an increase in the cost of the covered article listed in Appendix 1 to chapter 17 of the Handbook of Methods of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor.
Timely adjudication— In implementing the process established under subsection (a), the Secretary shall adjudicate exclusion requests not later than—
for critical homebuilding products, 15 days after the date on which the United States entity or association of entities requests such exclusion; and
for other covered articles, 60 days after the date on which the United States entity or association of entities requests such exclusion.
Retroactive application—
In general— Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any entry of a covered article that would have been subject to a lower rate of duty if the entry had been made after the issuance of an exclusion of the article from the imposition of a covered duty pursuant to the exclusion process established under subsection (a) that was made—
after the date of the enactment of this Act,
after the imposition of the covered duty with respect to that article, and
before the issuance of the exclusion,
Requests— A liquidation or reliquidation may be made under paragraph (1) with respect to an entry of a covered article only if a request therefor is filed with U.S. Customs and Border Protection not later than 180 days after the issuance of an exclusion described in paragraph (1) with respect to that article that contains sufficient information to enable U.S. Customs and Border Protection—
to locate the entry; or
to reconstruct the entry if it cannot be located.
Payments of amounts owed— Any amounts owed by the United States pursuant to the liquidation or reliquidation of an entry of an article under paragraph (1) shall be paid, without interest, not later than 90 days after the date of the liquidation or reliquidation (as the case may be).
Transparency— Not later than 15 days after the adjudication of any request for exclusion from the imposition of a covered duty pursuant to the exclusion process established under subsection (a), the Secretary shall publish the result of that adjudication on an internet website in an accessible format.
Reporting to Congress— Not less frequently than quarterly, the Secretary shall submit to the Committee on Finance of the Senate and the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives a report on all requests for exclusion from the imposition of a covered duty pursuant to the exclusion process established under subsection (a) adjudicated in the prior quarter, including an explanation of any decision not to grant a request for exclusion.
Definitions— In this section:
Covered article— The term covered article means any product used in the construction or furnishing of a single-family home or multi-family residential building and includes any material or input used in the manufacture of any such product.
Covered duty— The term covered duty means any duty on an article in excess of the rate of duty in effect for that article on January 19, 2025, but does not include—
an antidumping or countervailing duty imposed under title VII of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1671 et seq.); or
a duty proclaimed pursuant to section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2251).
Critical homebuilding product— The term critical homebuilding product means any covered article classified under any heading or subheading of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States listed in the following table:
Entry— The term entry includes a withdrawal from warehouse for consumption.
United States entity— The term United States entity means an entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States.