Posted on 01/23/2024 6:03:37 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The Biden administration’s War on Things That Work ran into a significant setback in the courts recently. At the start of Biden’s second year in office, he directed the Department of Energy to issue new “efficiency standards” for a variety of home appliances and plumbing fixtures. They went after everything from gas stoves and toasters to shower heads and toilets. They were seeking to undo regulations regarding “short-cycle appliances” put in place by the Trump administration which offered more flexibility to manufacturers and consumers in terms of water and energy conservation standards. But now, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected the Biden regulations, effectively putting the Trump regulations back in place. (Washington Examiner)
The Biden administration took a major action in 2022 to show it meant business in a war that had quietly raged for years.
The action was not related to the war in Afghanistan, which had just ended, or the conflict in Ukraine, which was about to begin. The administration’s action related to a battle of a different kind: the war on cleaning appliances.
In January of that year, the Energy Department finalized a rule to restore “efficiency standards” for consumer appliances — residential dishwashers, dryers, and washing machines — that had been rolled back during the Trump administration.
“The Trump rule,” Bloomberg Law reported at the time, “had created new short-cycle product classes that weren’t subject to any water or energy conservation standards.”
The court described the Biden regulations as being “arbitrary and capricious.” I would have added “ineffective and pointless,” but it’s still a fairly good description. This fight isn’t over because the appeals will no doubt continue up the chain, but at least the courts have the opportunity to review the White House’s power to effectively ban things based on a perceived “climate emergency” by imposing performance restrictions on products that are either impossible to meet or make them unaffordable for consumers.
In terms of energy restrictions, the effort to eliminate gas stoves is one of the more ridiculous items on a long list of nonsense. Natural gas is plentiful and cheap, releasing almost no excess gases into the atmosphere when compared to coal or even wood. We’ve been relying on it for ages and it has served us well. Using regulatory leverage to force everyone to switch to electric stoves accomplishes nothing because all of that electricity has to come from somewhere and a great deal of it still comes from fossil fuels, including natural gas.
Even the water restrictions are pointless in terms of practical household usage. As the Examiner points out, when you force people to use low-flow showerheads, people just take longer showers. If you mandate low-flow dishwashers, people will wind up either running them twice or washing their dishes by hand, a process that takes extra time and amazingly uses an average of nine times as much water as an efficient dishwasher. They are also critical of low-flow toilets, but I’ll take exception when it comes to those. We had new toilets installed last year and they were the newer, low-flow models. (That’s all you can order these days.) They actually work surprisingly well and they do use less water. I say this as someone who harbors serious concerns regarding the future availability of fresh water for mankind, so I don’t mind saving some when I can. But I still need a strong, hot shower to feel human. Sorry, environmentalists.
The point is, that a lot of very clever people worked for generations to improve the appliances and products that we rely on. They are the people who gave us all of these “Things That Work.” And our lives were made better by them. We don’t need the government wiping out all of that progress in the name of appeasing the climate goddess.
Friday ping.
The SCOTUS tells Biden he can’t do a lot of things, but he just gives them the middle finger and does it anyway. The leftists would go to the streets to fight for him, knowing damn well conservatives don’t have the stomach for any confrontation.
I’ve got a washer that I bought with this house, I think it’s about 7-8 years old, that uses *way* too little water, and doesn’t properly clean and rinse clothes.
Fortunately it sits next to a nice laundry room utility sink, in which I keep a 1 gallon plastic pitcher. When I start a load, I start the water in the sink running to fill the pitcher, put in my detergent, then dump the gallon on the laundry.
This does two things. One, it’s an incremental gallon of water, but second, it’s ~8 pounds of weight for the load sensing phase at the beginning. It thinks there’s more laundry, so you get more water, and it works.
If I could get away with kicking the government regulators responsible for this in the gonads, I would. They deserve it.
The Department of Energy itself is un-constitutional, and its meddling with details of American’s home appliances is also completely un-constitutional, as well as fascist and pure bureaucratic bloat
I flush 3 times to get my low flow toilette to work.
I did likewise with a LG "Smart" washer that would not obey the screen option to use hot water, and no matter what setting, it "agitated" like it was on gentle. So I filled up large cans of hot water from the bathtub and poured them in for greasy jeans, etc.
Years ago in another apt. in which our old GE washer was in the basement, the head went, and so I opened it up, and after some experimentation, I hooked up a couple light switches, by which I could control agitation and the spin cycle. Worked very will, esp. when I would (to often) forget about the wash and it agitated for maybe an hour or so. Likewise the spin cycle. Clothes got clean and ready to dry. Thank God. I was doing wash when 911 occurred. I actually prayed that morning while putting in my wash that God would fight against Islam due to it persecuting Christians.
The bored welfare crowd is always up for an entertaining street fight while the gainfully employed have to go to work to support the welfare crowd.
Low flush toilets and other water saving gizmos sort of make sense when you’re in the desert. Local governments might need water restrictions.
But most people live in areas that have plenty of water. It’s called rain. The eastern US is getting drenched this week.
Why do people living there have to conserve water when there’s already more than they can possibly use?
Biden is pointless.
This could all have been avoided if Joe hadn’t stuck that fork in the toaster ...
Bookmarked!
bttt
Good one; on ‘the list’.
Similar to the low flow toilets that Al. Gore was pushing back in the day.
And we still are required to use low-flow toilets. So he won that one.
My washer will continue to fill if you hold the water level button between medium and high
I worked for a water department for awhile. They decided to pass out water saving devices,(low flow shower, toilet, and faucet,). When we had our next meeting the finance department was screaming that since water usage was down so we’re revenues. So they jacked up the water usage rates.
Use less water, bill stays the same.
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