A century ago, things in American households were very different. Refrigeration wasn't available for most households; the best most folks could manage was a literal icebox, for which one had ice delivered periodically. Air conditioning was an expensive novelty for successful businesses. The internet of that time was called "radio," and those were large, furniture-grade sets that took a while to get the tubes warmed up before one could have a listen. Dishwashers? Electric or natural gas stoves? Not really a thing. I remember my mother describing life on a small farm during the Depression, when she was a girl; the heat in summer, the winter cold in the unheated bedrooms that the warmth from the wood stove didn't quite reach. My grandma cooked over the same wood stove that provided heat.
Since then, things have exploded in the appliance arena, making life easier and more convenient all the time. A hundred years ago, if I had killed a caribou or moose, I would have had to salt down the meat, or jerk it, or make sausage or pemmican. Now? Into the coffin-sized freezer in our garage.
The climate scolds, though, would walk us backwards. The federal government, some time back, slapped "efficiency" regulations on major appliances, making them slower, less effective, and less convenient. Now, though, the Trump administration has yanked those regs, in effect, Making Appliances Great Again.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright today announced the Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to permanently end home appliance and equipment mandates that raise costs and disrupt consumer choice. The proposal will update the Department’s Process Rule used to establish energy conservation standards for household appliances and equipment, including air conditioning units, gas stoves, washing and drying machines, water heaters, refrigerators, and other products Americans rely on every day. In accordance with President Donald Trump’s Executive Order, “Unleashing Prosperity through Deregulation,” the proposal will preserve consumer choice and lower costs.
“In America, you should be able to choose a dryer that dries clothes on the first try rather than one that takes multiple cycles—unfortunately, past administrations thought otherwise,” Secretary Wright said. “For too long, the American people paid the price for mandates that restricted consumer choice and drove up costs. President Trump promised to end this nonsense and that is exactly what we are doing. This proposed rule will preserve the American people’s ability to choose home appliances and equipment that actually work — at prices they can afford. It’s called common sense.”
The climate scolds are already up in arms about this. A recent piece in the Washington Post derided the move, calling it "President Trump's attack on efficiency standards." Road apples! The Trump administration, with this move, is returning a degree of choice to the American people, one that paternalistic, finger-wagging Democrats tried to take away. Nobody, in the administration or out of it, is restricting Americans from buying these supposedly efficient appliances if they choose; the only difference is that nobody is preventing us from buying, say, a dishwasher that you don't have to run through three cycles to get the dishes clean.
(In our house, we have a very efficient and effective dishwasher. Me.)
Read More: Affordability: Now Another Nail in the Coffin of 'Green Energy'
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The Empowerment Alliance's Gary Abernathy, always a good read, has this to say about the move:
What many on the left fail to understand is that most Americans are fully aware that a high-performing appliance will likely cost more money. But that’s our choice. “It also saves people money” is not a decision we want anyone else to make for us – just as we don’t want mandates forced upon us in the name of doing us a favor.
Most Americans are not wasteful. We know we should turn off lights when they’re not needed. We should adjust the thermostat accordingly when no one is going to be home. We should not water the lawn or wash the car when there’s a drought.
What we rightfully resent is obvious hypocrisy. It was laughable when New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently urged residents to keep their thermostats no lower than 78 degrees – just a couple of days before the much-ballyhooed wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden where, as many pointed out online, the bride and groom, along with their guests, were undoubtedly going to stay comfortably cool.
Most Americans, at least, the ones that don't vote for commies like Zohran Mamdani, aren't stupid. We turn off the lights when we leave a room. We keep our thermostats set at a reasonable level. We make sure the dishwasher has a full load before we run it. Why? Because most of us aren't in the habit of wasting money, and as a monthly reminder, we have our utility bills. Electricity and natural gas cost money, and we know it.
But these should be our decisions. They shouldn't be forced on us by some finger-wagging bureaucrat.
Mr. Abernathy also writes:
As People reported, Mamdani claimed that “the city is also taking steps to reduce energy demand by maintaining a 78-degree temperature in government buildings, dimming or turning off lights during peak electricity demand, asking private partners to do the same and powering down non- essential equipment.”
But – no surprise – the New York Post soon found that City Hall and other municipal buildings were below the 78-degree mark – with one room coming in at a downright chilly 54 degrees.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich nailed it when he responded that Mamdani’s post reflected “the reality of big government socialism’s inability to solve problems,” as the Hill reported.
“Telling New Yorkers to set their air conditioning at 78 degrees is an open admission of the failure of the left to provide enough inexpensive electricity that people can be comfortable even in hot weather,” Gingrich said.
Rules for me, not for thee; add an overweening hypocrisy to the list, and there you have the American left, in a nicely comfortable, 68-degree nutshell.
Look, here's the thing: We're Americans, dammit. We don't back off. We don't scale back. We don't hunker down. We walk tall. We ramp up. We don't walk small, we don't think small, and we sure as shootin' don't act small. We have some of the greatest energy resources on the planet: Oil, gas, coal, and soon, nuclear power. We don't have to put up with washers that don't clean or freezers that don't freeze. Let the Euro-weenies deal with these issues; we won't.
The Trump administration was right to scotch these rules and return those choices to American consumers. And if Democrats and climate scolds (but I repeat myself) don't like it, then we can tell them where to head in.
