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Trump and his devotees in government are the absolute last people who should be shaping the policy for federal building design.
Trump should leave well enough alone.
— Chicago Sun-Times
Lee Bey recently took his critical eye to the new Trump Administration’s mandate to restore Classicism in federal buildings, arguing it would "wind up saddling us (and the countries where U.S. embassies will be built) with ungainly new buildings struggling to mimic those of ancient Rome or 18th... View full entry
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has responded to President Donald Trump’s reinstated executive order demanding, among other things, that the General Service Administration (GSA) report to him within 60 days with a plan to reinstate the primacy of classically-inspired architecture in... View full entry
One of the two dozen or so new Trump Administration’s executive orders issued since assuming office includes a mandate for the restoration of an amalgam of classicism-inspired "traditional" architectural styles in all new federal government buildings. The newly signed Promoting Beautiful Federal... View full entry
Rhode Island is the latest U.S. state to consider the implementation of a new public development office aimed at increasing the government’s role in land acquisition, construction, and financing as it faces a housing shortage. The move would place it alongside fellow New Englanders Vermont... View full entry
Is Donald Trump a NIMBY or a YIMBY? Given that the housing crisis is a front-and-center issue throughout the country, whether or not the president-elect reflexively favors housing development is an important question.
But Trump is all over the place on the housing issue, as he is on so many others. It’s hard to know where he really stands.
— LA Times
Candidate Trump had stated his ambition to open federal lands for housing development among his only tangible plans that could directly elicit the production of new housing. The threat of new tariff impositions/reforms, which has been wielded aggressively against U.S. trade partners in Mexico... View full entry
The Biden administration on April 19 restored key regulations in the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires review of federal projects to assess their likely impacts on climate change and nearby communities. The changes to the NEPA rules will go into effect in late May, and could mean proposed infrastructure like highways, pipelines and railways take more time to get approved. — Construction Dive
This move reverses changes made by the Trump administration, which loosened the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 2020 in order to accelerate projects by shortening the time used to gather environmental information and community input. According to Construction Dive, construction... View full entry
President Donald Trump’s administration is looking at ways to convert a glut of commercial real estate resulting from the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing lockdowns, into affordable housing, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said Wednesday. — Bloomberg
HUD Secretary Ben Carson gave remarks on the unlikeliness of things going back to how they were before the pandemic, citing the greater number of people that will work from home in the future. As a result of that new reality, Carson said, according to Bloomberg, "That's going to free up a lot of... View full entry
The United States Army Corps of Engineers this week issued Southwest Valley Constructors a contract modification worth $524 million for design-build services on a barrier wall replacement project in Tucson, Arizona, at the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The change brings Southwest's contract amount for the project to almost $1.2 billion when combined with the May 2019 initial contract's award of $646 million for the same project. — Construction Dive
While construction of all non-essential projects in several US states has been ordered to stop to contain the spread of COVID-19, planning of fortification elements along the US-Mexican border near Tucson, Arizona is going ahead with full steam, as Construction Dive reports. View full entry
President Donald Trump signed an emergency bill Wednesday to expand family and medical leave as well as guarantee paid sick leave for certain U.S. workers... The bill allows the Secretary of Labor to exempt employers with fewer than 50 employees from the emergency FMLA leave requirement, "when the imposition of such requirements would jeopardize the viability of the business as a going concern." — HR Dive
According to HR Dive, The U.S. Senate passed the bill, titled the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, by a 90-8 vote earlier in the day. It was first passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 14, and a revised version passed Tuesday. The bill will take effect... View full entry
The United States Pentagon is working to distance itself from a series of statements made US President Donald Trump threatening to target Iranian cultural sites were military conflict to break out between the two nations. According to The Associated Press, Defense Secretary Mark Esper... View full entry
Tensions in the Middle East keep escalating after the U.S. President followed his drone assassination of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani with a tweet that publicly threatens to strike dozens of target sites in Iran, including "important" cultural sites, if the country dared to... View full entry
The Trump administration has formally notified the United Nations that the U.S. is withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. The withdrawal will be complete this time next year, after a one-year waiting period has elapsed.
"We will continue to work with our global partners to enhance resilience to the impacts of climate change and prepare for and respond to natural disasters," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement Monday.
— NPR.com
Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists told NPR, “The reality is, to really deliver on our climate goals, we do need strong federal action," adding, "The unfortunate reality is U.S. carbon emissions actually rose last year." View full entry
The Trump administration officials who came to town to study homelessness spent Monday and Tuesday meeting with officials from Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office, checking out the Jordan Downs public housing in Watts and touring the long-entrenched epicenter of the crisis, skid row. There was even a trek to Pomona.
An administration official said the purpose was to gather information so that President Trump could begin to develop a plan to address the “tragedy.”
— The Los Angeles Times
The tour comes as the Trump Administration's controversial Opportunity Zones program designed to funnel investment to underserved areas gains steam and as the administration potentially looks to rewrite "regulatory barriers" for affordable housing projects nationwide. According to... View full entry
The Trump administration and lawmakers in both parties generally don’t believe the government should be running in effect two enormous financial companies. Administration officials want to shrink the government’s involvement and return housing finance to a privately run system. — The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal takes a look at how (and why) the Trump Administration is looking to change the federal government's role in overseeing aspects of the nation's mortgage securities market. According to WSJ, the two government-sponsored entities secure half of the nation’s... View full entry
As a result of reduced tax revenue from the 2017 corporate tax cuts enacted by President Donald Trump, the development of at least 15,000 affordable housing units has been either delayed or eliminated entirely, The Sacramento Bee reports. The reason? A significant portion of affordable... View full entry