The real people facing the real consequences of a Biden administration policy designed to reduce Americans utility bills by $2 billion are surreally photogenic.

Thanks to a new federal rule requiring newly built homes to meet higher energy efficiency standards to qualify for federal loans, Noah, the smiling paralegal from Atlanta, cant afford the home he wants to buy. Neither can Keith, the bearded West Virginia schoolteacher whose dream house is now appraised at an eye-poppingly higher value because of the regulation. Nor can the LaMontes, charming-looking newlyweds trying to start a new family in Columbus, Ohio.

Thats according to testimony on the website of the Leading Builders of America, one of the nations two largest lobbying organizations representing the home-building industry. The claims are debatable, based at least in part on calculations advocates say inflate the costs of constructing homes to meet the latest and greenest ever building codes in the United States.

The portraits depicting the supposed homebuyers are all stock photographs. (The LBA said the numbers used in the testimonials are based upon real scenarios but admitted actual buyers have yet to be affected.)

Yet the industrys campaign to roll back one of President Joe Bidens least understood but most effective policies to simultaneously slash planet-heating emissions and soaring energy bills is very real and its just getting started.

At issue is a regulation finalized in April that saw the federal government formally adopt the most energy-efficient national building codes ever published by the International Code Council, the private nonprofit whose codebook is used as a benchmark for most of the United States.

While building codes are set on the state and local level, the federal government lends money to homebuyers through various agencies. Under federal law, regulators at the Department of Energy are required to analyze the ICCs latest codes when the third-party organization updates its codebook every three years. If the agency experts determine that the codes actually save energy, officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Agriculture are tasked with confirming whether complying with the codes would raise housing prices by too much. If not, then the two agencies are supposed to update the eligibility criteria for their loan programs to make meeting the latest codes the minimum home energy standard for newly constructed houses.