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Congressional Daily Record
This section captures a floor statement or debate entry. It mentions members such as John Peter Ricketts.
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June 16, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. RICKETTS. Mr. President, Nebraska is the best place in the world. Nebraska is where Americans want to be. And just recently, U.S. News just said Omaha, our largest city, is the second best place in the country for recent college grads. This is a wonderful recognition of what great quality of life we have in Omaha.
we have got more work to do with regard to housing. Housing is something that we need to make more affordable for Americans. Just 10 years ago, the average age of a new homeowner was 31 years old. Today, the average age of a new homeowner is 40.
About 25 percent of the cost of a new home is regulation and redtape. And, actually, for an apartment building it is even worse—it is 40 percent. I was talking to an apartment builder in Omaha, and he described to me how when he first got into building apartment buildings, he could build an apartment for about $15,000 and now the cost is well over $200,000.
Now, this is not a new issue. When I was Governor of the great State of Nebraska, this was something we worked on as well. In fact, I worked with my legislature to introduce the Rural Workforce Housing Act. We put about $7 million into a grant program which allowed rural communities to be able to partner with developers to be able to help build homes or apartment buildings.
interest fund that developers would apply to—oftentimes using it, for example, as a bridge loan—build the housing development and then pay off the loan so the money could be recycled back into the next loan to help build more houses.
program and then created the Middle Income Housing Fund as well to be able to help out cities like Omaha.
rest of America. We are working on our ROAD to the 21st Century Housing Act. In fact, this is something that has passed both the Senate Banking Committee and on the House side as well, and I want to commend Chairman Scott for the great work he has done working with both sides of the aisle to receive their input to create the ROAD to the 21st Century Housing Act.
describing earlier. It includes several of the bills that I have introduced, including the Streamlining Rural Housing Act.
Urban Development and USDA to work together. Both these Agencies will have grant money to help build homes. And a homeowner won't be able to take money from both of those, but what happens is—they both have their own permitting and review process, which often will be done in serial and creates more regulatory redtape and bureaucracy. What my bill does is require them to work together to streamline that process to be able to make it faster.
the bills that we have put together into this ROAD to 21st Century Housing to be able to make the process easier. If we can build more homes faster and there are more homes available, that will help bring down the cost of housing. It is a pretty simple concept.
number of bills that are also included in the ROAD to the 21st Century Housing Act, including the Rural Housing Regulatory Relief Act. This was one that Mike Flood, who is the First District Congressman from Nebraska, brought up in the House.
Also Improving Housing Access Act; Housing for America's Middle Class
Act; Rural Housing Service Reform Act, which I am a cosponsor of. All of these are included here to be able to help us cut the regulatory redtape, make housing more affordable, and be able to help reduce the costs for Nebraskans and Americans across the country.
We have passed this out of our side; the House has passed their side. Right now, we are working to take the best of both of those bills to be able to get something that we will, again, both vote on and then send to the President's desk.
the costs of living for people across the country. I am very proud to be able to work with my colleagues on the ROAD to 21st Century Housing Act. I look forward to being able to get this to the President's desk for signature.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.