NICK POPE
CONTRIBUTOR
A federal appeals court shot down the Biden administration’s efforts to repeal existing regulations on dishwashers and clothes washers on Monday.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in a legal battle between eleven red states and the federal government over the Department of Energy’s (DOE) efforts to impose energy and water efficiency standards for dishwashers and clothes washers that asserted it “is unclear that DOE has statutory authority to regulate water use in dishwashers and clothes washers,” according to the opinion’s text. The Biden administration has attempted to push new standards for both appliances since coming into office in 2021 as part of a wider push to nudge the market toward more energy efficient appliances, which in some cases are generally less effective than their other models, the court asserted in its opinion.
In March 2018, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) proposed standards for dishwashers that allow the sale of models that run faster cycles, using more energy and water than standard dishwashers in the process. The Trump administration then adopted similar guidelines as policy in 2020, but the Biden DOE repealed those standards in 2021 before advancing its own standards that crack down on the faster models advantaged by the Trump administration’s rules in May 2023. (RELATED: Biden Admin Fires Next Salvo In War On Appliances)
“But even if DOE has water-usage authority over the relevant appliances, the Department (b) failed to adequately consider the negative consequences of the Repeal Rule, including the substitution effects of energy-and-water-wasting rewashing, prewashing, and handwashing,” the opinion states. “In promulgating the Repeal Rule, DOE stated that its energy conservation program must promote ‘water conservation’ and regulate ‘water use’ … But it is unclear how or why DOE thinks it has any statutory authority to regulate ‘water use’ in dishwashers and washing machines.”
“In our court, however, DOE pretends it repealed the 2020 rules because it committed merely procedural errors by ‘failing to adequately consider the [Energy Policy Conservation Act’s] requirements … It borders on frivolous to say the 2020 Rules failed to consider” the relevant statutes, as “the 2020 Rules considered these sections extensively,” the opinion states. The DOE “amplified its capriciousness by throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
The court’s opinion also points out that there is “ample evidence” to support that DOE’s dishwasher standards actually accomplish the opposite of their intent, stating that “they make Americans use more energy and more water for the simple reason that purportedly ‘energy efficient’ appliances do not work.”
Beyond clothes washers and dishwashers, the Biden DOE has also sought to impose energy efficiency regulations for items like water heaters, furnaces and pool pump motors. The administration has also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on helping state and municipal governments pursue building codes
“In this opinion, the court has forced DOE to follow the law and even noted that one of the positions DOE took in this suit ‘borders on frivolous.’ This decision allows manufacturers to build better dishwashers, not be encumbered by counterproductive federal regulations,” Devin Watkins, an attorney for CEI, said of the opinion.
The DOE did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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Biden dishwasher, Xi approved.
A fellow I know likes to mess with peoples minds. Likes to tell them (AFTER a meal )
“The dog gets to do the dishes again .”
😉
The rural traveling trinket salesman, like Mr Haney in Green Acres, always stopped by monthly … and it was always around supper time. I always hated it, but my wife always nice to him. She always bought some crap we didn’t need (after listening his redundant sales speil) and then she would ask him if he would stay for supper.
Well, one month when came by the wife wasn’t home; she had gone off to visit her sister over in Lakeview. The clear disappointment in the salesman’s eyes disappeared when I offered him supper anyway.
After we finished eating I held each plate, bowel, and platter for the dog to lick clean, all the while carrying conversation with Mr Haney. The stacked dishware was then wiped dry and casually returned to cabinet next to the kitchen table, as I carried on a one sided conversation (by this time Mr Haney wasn’t saying much …).
My wife never learned why Mr Haney stopped accepting her supper invites …
(I don’t remember which comedian I heard this from. But he told it way better. Might have been somebody on the tonite show )
“The dog gets to do the dishes again.”
Skip to the next post if you’re easily offended.
Q: What do you do when an epileptic has a fit in your bath?
A: Go and get your dirty laundry.
Jokes aside, I already suffer a washing machine which thinks it knows better than me when I want to make sure I don’t get skin irritation/burns from poorly rinsed laundry. I simply put it on a rinse cycle again after it has finished saving the planet.
It works. It really really works! Mandate it.
Please don’t tell me that they mass-preduced this idiocy.
There’s one fan.
Tears in my eyes. Someone wasted his life thinking that one out.
The real question and worry is ‘Why?’.
I’d wager that pseudo engineer is paid by the hour.
I think, because of errors in translation, this object is misidentified. It is actually a scaled up model of the last two remaining synapses of the US commander in Chief trying to remember if he is or isn’t allowed to sniff little girls’ hair.
When you flush, toss an extra 1/2 gallon of water into the bowl.
’cause, you know poop floats. 🙂
Can we please get rid of Bandon and his minions.
Bandon? Let’s Go Brandon?
Well, the left is trying to BanDon
BanDon get Brandon?
aBanDon Brandon?
You’ll probably want to stick a Bandaid over that.
At some point, people will stop buying what they don’t want. Poor performance, quality and longevity of manufactured items is a big factor for not wanting to acquire something. Buying junk is not in your best interests.
After a while all one can do is shake his head. About a months ago they started taking away our plastic grocery bags. Then just paper grocery bags with paper handles that break unless you put less in them which means using twice as many bags. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and all the paper bags are the handless type! The plastic bags were superior in every way and also made much better kitty litter disposal bags. FJB
They banned single use plastic bags in supermarkets in NZ a few years ago. We used to re-use them as rubbish bin liners. Now we buy plastic bags to use in the bin.
Greenpeace are now running ads to ban single use plastic bottles.
Two points spring to mind.
Firstly, banning plastic increases costs which disproportionately harms the poorest people. Do the Marxists think this is a bug or a feature?
Secondly, if plastic is put into landfill, is that not sequestering carbon, and therefore in the tiny mind of a greeny, a good thing?
Most items in supermarkets are packaged in plastic in one form or another in any case. We’re being gaslighted.
They didn’t ban them from the fruits and veggies sections, I wonder why.
That’s right – if people cannot get the bags from toting home their groceries and goods, they will just buy them. And the plastic still ends up in the landfill….
Doesn’t make sense replacing plastic bottles with glass – think of all that extra Diesel fuel the trucks would use delivering the heavier bottles.
And doesn’t paper require more energy and have a larger carbon footprint that a plastic bag? Lumbering and papermills don’t run on unicorn farts and pixie sparkle.
I’d think making glass takes a lot energy! Maybe they’ll just require everyone to have HUUUGE pockets in their pants, dresses, coats to carry our stuff home. And that’ll lead to new fashions! I’d start on the fashion work if I knew how to use AI. And, I mean really big pockets!
“Firstly, banning plastic increases costs which disproportionately harms the poorest people. Do the Marxists think this is a bug or a feature?”
Definitely a feature. Squash those plebs!
These bag bans are spreading like a disease here in Maryland. First it was Baltimore city, then Baltimore county, then Montgomery county, and now, as of the first of this year, Frederick county (surprising as that used to be a red county). Those plus a number of smaller towns (like Westminster) that have banned plastic bags within their limits. Going to the grocery store brings back memories (some of them not pleasant) of grocery shopping in the late 70’s. My grandparents would take me to the grocery store with them and we’d come home with them carrying in armloads of paper bags full of goods. They had to be careful to grab the heavy ones underneath, lest they rip apart. Ice cream (especially in warm weather) was also a problem – I remember the A&P cashiers would double bag ice cream to help prevent the condensation from soaking thru the bags. And then there were rainy days, when you had to get your groceries inside before the bags got too wet. Sorry, but the retro thing is only fun if it’s something you WANT to do….
The lack of plastic bags not only sucks for cat owners, but not long ago I had a client who was incontinent (I care for elderly people in their homes) and quite a few plastic grocery bags were used in his care. They work great not only for disposing of used cat litter, but also for used adult diapers. I brought him as many bags as I could get my hands on as otherwise I would have taken them to a recycling location. Saved him and his family some money too. But once the town banned the bags, I could only get some when I shopped for my mother in another location without a bag ban.
But if the greens think it will stop cat owners and care givers of incontinent people from using plastic bags, they need to think again. Those people will simply purchase small plastic trash bags and dispose of used litter and diapers. The only difference is it will cost them more…
I bought a number of stretchable plastic fabric bags in a Kickstarter.
They come with a tiny attached pouch into to which they are easily returned and store in a very small place.
My wife carries a couple in her purse.
Each bag will hold something like 30 kilos and we have yet to reach that weight in one bag.
We also bought a number of bags @ 1$ each from a local grocery store back when they were strongly encouraging shoppers to spurn paper or alleged single use plastic bags.
These grocery store advertisements fold up into a reasonable size, but in groups they do take up a lot of space.
Plus (Not), one must remember to fill the car with folded bags when heading out shopping.
A distinct negative when many of our grocery store visits are when we have free time after things like Doctor visits. Time we hope for, but often do not work out for us.
I buy plastic bags to take with me when shopping. I buy in bulk and they are very cheap. They get used for other things before eventually being put in the bin.
Paper bags? But… but… they’ll have to cut down trees for that! And the trees are storing carbon to save the planet!
That sounds like you’re back into the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s until they banned the use of paper bags because of all the trees being cut down to manufacture them. They were replaced with single use plastic bags. “Back to the Future!”
First they wanted to recycle paper to make new bags – which broke easier because of the short fibers from taking the old paper and chopping it up. All virtue signaling which eventually fails to deliver.
Here’s an old Penn and Teller short about recycling paper:
That sounds like you’re back into the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s
Seems to be a lot of that going on due to “progressive” ideology.
just paper grocery bags
I remember when they banned paper bags in favor of plastic because the paper bags were bad for the environment (forests)
IIRC, back then when given the choice between paper or plastic, the question became, “Kill a tree or gag a duck?”
Anyone can buy a thousand plastic grocery bags online for about a penny each. I give them as Christmas gifts and people are delighted.
And the local (blue) state Eco-Nazi governments as well. Mine indicated the bone-headed plastic bag ban on us a few years back.
Inflicted (autouncorrect strikes again)
Low flow toilets. Need to flush them 2 or 3 times. Sewer pipes were not disigned for low flow, so waste turns to cement in the pipes, restricting flow.
If you have Low flo toilets and plumbing that backs up regularly that is the reason.
Yes I recently replaced my home toilets, since most were “one piece” designs and/or odd shapes (and/or colors) that (a) didn’t flush very well, (b) “ran” frequently, (c) would (due to their unique, non-standard innards) be as expensive to “repair” as a new toilet, (d) impossible to find replacement seats for, etc.
I anticipated that the much smaller amount of water might cause “issues” further “down the (sewer/septic) line,” and indeed did experience such an “issue.”
The sewer/septic line specialist suggested a minimum of one flush after dropping “solids” and another after “paperwork,” both done holding the lever down until the tank is totally empty.
No trouble since implementing that “procedure.” 🤞
My experience is low flow toilets more modern than the ones of a couple decades ago need only one flush with a #2 load. Even if one has to flush twice with a #2 load, that means 80% as much water as with a 5-gallon toilet. And, I don’t hear anyone saying that a #1 load needs more than one flush, so with those a low flow toilet uses 40% as much water as 5-gallon toilets. Also, I have seen toilets with two flush buttons: One to use 2 gallons of water for a #2 load, the other for using less than 2 gallons of water for a #1 load.
Sounds a lot like the EU limiting vacuum cleaners with a motor that exceeds 1,600 watts.
Just took twice as long running to clean the rugs & floors.
In the US, residential vacuum cleaners need to work on 120V 15 amp circuits, which means max. of 1800 watts times the motor’s power factor.
The most powerful residential type toilets I ever saw are low flow ones. They have an inner tank with air that gets compressed by incoming water, and the compressed air assists the flush. My experience personally including houses of people I know is that sewer pipes do not get clogged by using low flow toilets.
There is plenty of water in the US.
Too much more often than too little most of the time.
You hear of people dying from too much water and drowning, but I have never heard of anyone dying from lack of water in the US.
It happens in Death Valley every once in awhile.
Death Valley is the only place there should be a low flow toilet mandate.
an outhouse- I think they’ll soon require we all have them- they can start at the White House
Yeah with any luck, Biden would fall in and drown.
does he still use toilets?
Maybe a “composting” toilet mandate. 😉
My favorite is recycling milk jugs where you are supposed to wash them out ahead of recycling. How many billions of gallons of water have been wasted.
Aim a cam at the location where they pick up recycles. I am retired now and have found out that at least 3 out of ten times they put the recycles in the trash truck. And that is after I have spent about a hundred gallons of water a week rinsing out the containers I put in the recycle bin.
I use only a few gallons of water per week rinsing recyclables. My experience is that recyclables have been reliably picked up by separate trucks. Although I have known Philadelphia to have recyclables being picked up by regular trash trucks, especially during the pandemic.
I’m surprised the patriarchal word “jugs” has not yet been outlawed.
If they strike out such words, a significant portion of words would be banned.
It is part of the plan to ban a significant number of words so that the WEF can introduce Newspeak. (ref. 1984)
Yeah like Golden Bozos. (Points to anyone who gets the reference.)
There was something like that in the UK, when recycling became ‘The Thing To Do‘
It was that, especially during the brief flashes of warm weather that UK calls Summer, the operatives at recycling plants were being overcome by the smell/stink caused by the small amounts of food contained within unwashed cans, jars and food cartons.
Made much worse that the weekly rounds by the Garbage Cart (Refuse Wagon or Ash Cart) became (money saving) fortnightly visits and the stuff matured nicely while awaiting collection.
It is all just soooo totally crazy, our squeamishness about what is ‘waste’, pollution’ and ‘stink’ is, in real terms and in the real world, completely crazy.
>> The outflow from kitchen sinks, laundry machines and dishwashers is The Most Complete and near-perfect plant, soil, bacteria food there ever could be.
It has everything, all the trace elements, micronutrients, macro nutrients, sugars, proteins, fats and and ‘fibre’ that plants love – all nicely diluted down in copious amounts of clean potable water.
If that ‘used water’ or ‘grey water’ was collected up and delivered to farmers, growers and horticulturalists it would kill entire flock of birds with single pebbles, let alone any stones.
If moved quickly and efficiently (possibly chilled en-route) it would never get the chance to turn into unpleasant, odiferous and choking stuff. You would never know.
If folks have access to any green space, garden or back-yard, they could do it themselves – and after a few months be amazed at what they see happening out there.
It is at places/times like that where this Junk Climate Science will be called to account – folks will realise & learn just how the real world works
Not only and then:
But no, we go to incredible expense to regard such valuable stuff in absolute disgust, treat it and discard it.
Then: Farmers and growers are forced to spend vast amounts to buy the equivalent back just to grow their crops.
Even before we get into the ‘water’ and irrigation aspects.
This world has gone mad – the obsession with efficiency & cleanliness will be the end of us – because, We use such huuuuuge (often irreplaceable) resource to achieve those things.
Don’t take my or anybody’s word.
Try it. Catch the water from the kitchen sink, throw it out onto the garden/lawn/backyard and see how it goes. Then the dishwasher output, then the laundry machine.
And here’s a one. The amount of Urea (Nitrogen fertiliser) that is literally pissed away down toilets (15grams per person per day) in toto and across the world every 12 months, amounts to 50% of ALL the Nitrogen fertiliser that farmers buy/use in that same 12 months
See now where Sri Lanka really went wrong……?
The UK has gone off the deep wrt recycling. There’s a city the sends no domestic rubbish to landfills, but to accomplish that it requires residents to sort their rubbish into SEVEN different color-coded bags. A major problem, unsurprisingly, is cross-contamination. If, for instance, paper goes in one bag and plastic another, into which bag would you put an envelope with a plastic window? Wood goes here, metal goes there, where do you put something constructed out of wood and metal? Or wood, metal, and plastic? In short, the whole scheme is failing the reality test – and it’s a real pain to the people (not to mention all the bags lining the streets on pickup days).
Mine are saved until it is raining at 1 am … then they go into the wood stove.
Well if you’re a true believer Eco-Nazi, you just pour all that milky sludge into a bucket next to the loo, and use that to flush instead of fresh water.
Never mind the smell, we’re saving the planet! (Lol)
The inside the dishwasher video after the plate cleaning insect is comment worthy too.
Travelling Europe and so far every toilet has a plastic bin alongside for the used toilet paper so it doesn’t clog the works. Nothing says hygiene like a basket of poop decorated toilet paper next to you. The EU commission will no doubt regulate this paper be sorted and the lightly soiled product used a second or third time.
Take a look at all the eaves troughs and down spouts. There’s billions of dollars worth of copper there. Over here the homeless would have stolen it all long ago.
Gee, if the greens get their way bathrooms will be like the one my grandmother had to use while we were in Egypt when I was a kid. Literally holes in the ground with a stall around them, and a little boy standing there handing out roughly 5 squares of toilet paper to each person on the way to the toilets. Luckily my grandmother didn’t have to do #2…..
reminds me ancient Roman public toilets
Dear God that’s disgraceful, what hell-holes have you been travelling around?
Everywhere we have traveled so far in the EU they have heat pumps in almost every room. They are fine so long as you don’t mind waiting 12 hours for a room to warm up and the constant noise of the motors and being cold all the time. Right now we are in Sicily. 2 room apartment. 2 heat pumps going full out. Wearing our coats in bed to stay warm.
Freezing in winter is part of the charm. A couple of hot Italians could warm those beds up, however.
And this “Totally Nuts” idiocy will cause more and more climate refugees…
.. moving to WARMER places.
I had a Sargent in the Air Force telling me about meeting and marrying his wife in Germany, once married he moved in with their family. The house’s only “environmental control” was a charcoal fire. At night, due to (legitimate) fear of CO and CO2 poisoning, not only was the fire put out, but the windows were opened a crack, regardless of the outdoor temperature. He said they had a looooooot of quilts on the bed.
The government needs to get out of people’s business.
I wish we could get some actual Constitutional originalists into power. The 10th amendment is pretty clear… The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Nothing in the Constitution gives the federal government the power to create the Department of Energy. Nor any of the other unconstitutional departments. But sadly, both the Democrat and the Democrat-Lite (i.e. Republican) parties like the expansion of their power.
I’m afraid that ship has sailed, probably sometime between the Civil War and the Spanish American War (remember the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?). But it’s still a legitimate concern. I found at least one group that believes that anywhere from one third to two thirds of the U. S. federal expenditures go to things that are either not addressed by the Constitution (and therefore should be reserved to the States) or are outright prohibited by the Constitution. I believe the two-thirds number is closer to correct.
I believe the two-thirds number is closer to correct.
Closer, without going over.
When you get right down to it, they like chauffeurs, free booze and banquets. Can’t miss out on an awards ceremony now can we? Another piece of framed paper to hang on your wall proving what a great person you are.
energy, power, whatever. numbers. just numbers. it’s about the feelz.
I bought appliances that I can repair or that have not broken since I came into possession. I have repaired my DW, electric drier, gas cook stove quite a number of times. The refrigerator has not failed since installed in 2000 by my PO builder. Only the laundry washer is beyond me for the computers and BLDC motor.
I am vacationing in a house with all new appliances. The DW takes minimum 150 minutes. The refrigerator is a most stupid design. But not mine to worry about.
Experience in Europe.
Product A gets clothes clean, removes stains even at low temperature wash cycles.
Product B removes those stains that low temperature wash cycles don’t.
Coincident with low temperature, reduced water use, and eco-friendly detergents, the shelves next to the detergents are packed with hitherto unseen stain-remover additives and laundry disinfectants.
Reduced water, low temperatures machines, environmentally friendly detergents do not get clothes clean, do not remove and kill bacteria, do not kill off spores which cause moulds to grow inside machines particularly in the rubber door seals.
Dishwashers too need pre-wash additives and disinfectants.
Any alleged cost saving in energy and water use are lost with the increased cost of additives and disinfectants, putting some laundry items in for a second wash, and washing dishes in the sink that come out of the dishwasher still not clean.
Go to the paint department at your local big box hardware store and but some trisodium phosphate (TSP). 1/8 of a cup in a load of laundry works wonders.
The former Cascade dishwasher detergent, the one that actually got dishes clean in one cycle, but was shunted aside for “phosphate free” versions…? That one? Is now available still from Cascade as “Fryer Boil Out”. I first heard this from someone who (somehow) still had access to an old box of the older useful Cascade, and found the exact same ingredients listed in the exact same order on both boxes. I order a couple of boxes about every 6 months. I have had clean dishes ever since.
The only prewashing I do anymore is on post and pans I actually cooked in, scorched chili doesn’t come out by dishwasher alone no matter what detergent you use. Same for pie plates, especially when your crust leaks.
My experience is that modern high efficiency dishwashers are not in any way worse than the older ones except for taking longer. As for clothes washers, my experience is that modern ones have no downsides in comparison to older ones except breaking down more frequently – and probably for the same reason water heaters don’t last as long as they used to: Cheaper quality of manufacturing nowadays.
I’m always fascinated by this phrase “energy efficient”. Regardless of what I’m aiming to do — drive a car, heat the house, clean floors, cook food — I expect the ‘appliance’ I am using to do the job to an acceptable standard.
If someone comes along with an improved version that does the job better or quicker or cheaper then I’ll buy it because it is more efficient. Part of that improved efficiency might be that it produces the same result by using less energy but by what definition is a product which does the job worse or slower ‘efficient’ simply because its power rating is lower?
“Energy efficiency” as understood by governments and their agencies has nothing to do with efficiency in the real world; it’s just one more eco-con trick aimed at the gullible who can be persuaded that an appliance rated at, say, 1.5kW is more “efficient” or requires only 75% of the power of one rated at 2kW. Which is true only if it does the job as well and in the same time. Which in the real world is unlikely.
Why cannot this type of successful legal argument by those States be used to remove mandated preferences for electricity from wind and solar?
Surely the national regulators lack powers to ordain electricity from any source?
Whatever happened to the choices of the individuals whose taxes pay for the regulators?
Geoff S
Most states did it to themselves!!! Witness Texas.
Bureaucrat Dems trying to force public citizens to adopt what are basically technically standards that the Dems have zero competence on !!!! Not even dumb… dumber than dumb !!!!
My experience is that high efficiency dishwashers do work as well as older models, and do nothing worse except taking more time. As for appliances other than dishwashers, I have experienced that higher efficiency ones do work as well as other ones, except for one downside of front loading clothes washers: Modern front-loading non-commercial-grade clothes washers break down more easily than top loading ones. And I don’t think they have to, this seems to me as for the same reason water heaters don’t last as long as they used to: Manufacturers are making them flimsier because Americans are not demanding and paying for these being built to last as long as they used to.