Back in the 1990s, there was a mildly amusing television show called Married With Children, which chronicled the misadventures of Chicago resident Al Bundy and his family. Al Bundy, I would point out, was the king in his castle, but his throne was porcelain. One episode had the elder Bundy bemoaning the lack of force in this appliance, so he went to Canada to buy a new one, one not constrained by American capacity and flow regulations. That didn't end well for Mr. Bundy, but then few things did. But it was an interesting example of the lengths Americans will go to, to achieve appliance satisfaction.
The good news is that, since resuming office a little over a year ago, the Trump administration has (among other things) been busily rolling back some pretty dumb Biden-era appliance regulations. A new editorial over at Issues & Insights has some specifics.
In the early months of 2025, Donald Trump sensibly began to roll back burdensome regulations that had targeted modern conveniences. Now the House has codified a Trump executive order so that the next Democratic president can’t, with the stroke of an autopen, unwind the progress. Now it’s up to the Senate to match the House’s work and make the deregulatory directive law.
Still fresh into his second term in the White House, the Trump administration, in the words of Marc Oestreich that are so enjoyable to read that we have to repeat them here, “turned its chainsaws on the Department of Energy (DOE), cutting, canceling, or pausing a handful of onerous regulations set to hobble household and commercial appliances.”
“Gone were efficiency mandates that have made dishwashers weaker, A.C. units feebler, and appliances more expensive,” Oestreich wrote in Reason. “A new rollback offers a rare win for function over dogma.”
I know personally of a number of people who are still hanging on to older appliances, from HVAC units to dishwashers to other accoutrements pertaining to people's "necessary" because the newer models are inferior, in capacity and capability. What's particularly stupid is that these regulations were written, ostensibly, in part to save water. Now that may make sense in Arizona, but in Alaska? If there's one thing we have a lot of in Alaska, it's water. We have over 3,000,000 lakes here in the Great Land, not to mention all the rivers and streams. That's as many lakes as 300 Minnesotas, without all the screeching lunatics. Also, a healthy proportion of Alaskans, like us, are on wells - we're not using any city water supplies.
And besides, everyone knows the workarounds: We now have to flush twice, run the dishwasher twice, stand under the showerhead longer.
We were riled that Biden wanted “to force low-flow showerheads on the country that popularized showering, overriding an effort by the Trump administration to give consumers more options and reining in a government that believes it has no boundaries.”
Of course it was one of many invasions into private matters that Washington has dispatched from on high. The federal leviathan has regulated household goods ranging from light bulbs and washing machines to toilets and dishwashers. In the latter two examples, toilets now need multiple flushes to do the job that one flush used to do, and dishwashers’ cleaning cycles can now take four to six hours and still leave dishes dirty enough to require further handwashing.
But that wasn’t enough for the last Democratic administration that danced like puppets to the green activists’ shrill, off-key music. The Biden White House imposed efficiency rules on central air conditioning, heat pumps, walk-in coolers and freezers, and gas tankless water heaters.
The new showerheads, by the way, are now available, and for that, for the showerheads in particular, my whitened yet still ample locks of hair are grateful. Thanks President Trump!
Read More: Who Might Our Appliances Be Talking to Right Now?
Your Gas Stove Is Safe! Trump Kills Biden-Era Appliance Regs
The arguments about carbon emissions are even more egregious. The United States has ample energy supplies. If the climate scolds were really all that worried about electricity, they'd be arguing for building more nuclear power plants; they aren't, and that tells you all you need to know.
Choice. It's all about choice. Under Joe Biden and his autopen, we had fewer choices. Now we have more. That's an unvarnished good. And, best of all, Congress is following the administration's lead:
The House followed his lead, passing two weeks ago by a 226-197 vote (with the help of 11 Democrats) the Saving Homeowners from Overregulation With Exceptional Rinsing Act, or SHOWER Act, which “provides statutory authority for a revised definition of showerhead for the purpose of federal water efficiency regulations.”
The hope here is that the Senate also passes the bill, setting off a cascade of deregulatory legislation that will wipe out decades of Democrats’ attempt to run our lives from the halls of the administrative state in Washington.
Recently, our dryer in our Susitna Valley home went on the fritz. The washer was fine, but my wife wanted a newer, high-tech combination washer/dryer. Our daughter had one and liked it, her Mom liked it, and I was used to them from a stint in Japan, where every Sunday found me at the local "Happy Fun Laundry" where I could put in dirty clothes, swipe my Happy Fun Laundry card, and after a while, pull clean, dry clothes out. So, we bought one. I don't know about its capacity, and I don't know about its date of manufacture. But I know my wife is happy with it, and being a believer in the old saying, "Happy wife, happy life," that means I'm happy with it too. And the point is, it was our choice: Not some government bean-counter's. That, right there, makes all the difference.
It's a good thing to see these Biden-era regulations being, well, flushed.
