Editorial: Trump is making household appliances great again

The Editorial Board, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Apr 24, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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If the government shouldn’t be in your bedroom, why is it spying on your bathroom?

This month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order repealing the federal government’s definition of “showerhead.” That definition was 13,000 words long. The White House argues that this move will make “America’s showers great again.”

If you aren’t familiar with the federal government’s regulatory regime, this may not make much sense. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines showerhead as “a fixture for directing the spray of water in a bathroom shower.” Even for bureaucrats, adding another 12,988 words seems particularly inefficient.

That long definition exists to place restrictions on how much water showerheads spray. During his rallies, Trump would joke about his struggles using low-flow showerheads on his “beautiful hair.”

Engineers didn’t forget how to make functional showerheads. Instead, the bureaucracy placed artificial limits on their performance. Trump is “returning to the straightforward meaning of ‘showerhead’ from the 1992 energy law, which sets a simple 2.5-gallons-per-minute standard for showers,” according to the White House.

It’s not just showerheads. You may have noticed something odd about new appliances. Many don’t work as well as the machines from 20 years ago. For instance, modern dishwashers can take more than two hours to complete a cycle. Older models got the job done in under 60 minutes. Yet many newer models tout their energy efficiency. Most people wouldn’t define longer cycles as efficient.

Once again, what’s driving this isn’t consumer demand but government regulations. For the past three decades, bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., have imposed ever stricter controls on appliances in the name of water and energy conservation.

In 1992, Congress passed “the Energy Policy Act, and industry giants such as Whirlpool saw the angle: back the rules, get the tax breaks and freeze out smaller competition,” Marc Oestreich wrote on Reason.com. “In the 2000s, Bush-era energy bills brought green nonprofits and manufacturers into open collusion — subsidies for submission — while appliance lifespans quietly cratered, from 30 years to 10.”

The Trump administration is doing what it can to reverse this. Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy said it would pull back new regulations on products such as electric motors and ceiling fans. It also postponed the effective dates on new rules for central air conditioners and heat pumps. These are good steps, but a more permanent fix is needed. Congress should repeal that 1992 law.

The federal government has no business telling Americans what kind of showerheads they may use.

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