Posted on 03/18/2015 12:30:24 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The initiative would also pressure guests to reuse dirty linens.
Claims of bureaucratic overreach within the Environmental Protection Agency are nothing new; however, its latest initiative is ruffling a few more feathers than usual. With funding from a grant made to the University of Tulsa, the EPA hopes to develop a prototype for a device that would monitor and report the water use of hotel guests across America.
“Most hotels do not monitor individual guest water usage,” the grant states, “and as a result, millions of gallons of potable water are wasted every year by hotel guests.”
As per usual, the federal government asserted its position as the arbiter of personal behavior by explaining how individuals will now be shamed into using less water.
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The device being developed through the grant, the EPA confirmed, “will be designed to fit most new and existing hotel shower fixtures and will wirelessly transmit hotel guest water usage data to a central hotel accounting system.”
According to the grant, its goal will be to “assist hotel guests in modifying their behavior to help conserve water.”
One of the researchers working on the project explained his objective will be to “get hotel guests to reduce their water use by 10 percent or to reduce their showers by about one minute,” noting that the average hotel shower currently lasts about eight minutes.
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Beyond water waste in the shower, the project will also include pleas to reuse towels and other linens while staying in a hotel room instead of requesting they be laundered.
Rush Limbaugh noted on his syndicated radio show Tuesday that he believes it will be just a matter of time until the EPA attempts to force citizens to install such software in their own homes.
Limbaugh was hardly the only person outraged by the news. Twitter comments in response to a Fox News link included overwhelmingly negative reactions.
One user explained that a hotel is “the only place I enjoy a long hot shower especially since I’m paying enough for the room.”
Others cited this program as further evidence that the federal government needs to be pruned significantly.
I’m waiting to find out which hotel chain will be stupid enough to cooperate. Instant lifetime boycott.
What is it with Nazis and showers?
Maybe Sheryl Crow will also push for a restriction on the use of toilet paper in rooms, down to 1 sheet per dump.
Where, pray tell, does the Constitution give the feds the power to have something called the Environmental Protection Agency?
NUKE THE EPA.
Sort of that, STATES, reject and nullify these unconstitutional federal agencies and acts.
The larger question is whether this is a slippery slope...(rhetorical)
What is the volume that is not defined as ‘wasted’, as all the water is paid for by the motel anyway, and at what point can they say YOU are using too much water AT HOME?
EPA can FO. NSA: Please forward and KMA.
They already control the toilets.
I thought Sheryl Crow said we can use more than 1 sheet during what she called “messy” events in the bathroom. I guess we use our imagination on this one..,....
We had a governor here in N.J. who controlled the bathrooms on the N.J. Turnpike.
I try to stay at a motel that has a free breakfast. I know that all the desk girls are watching me in the shower on that tv they have at the front desk. So, I just hop out of the shower and run down naked and wet to the front desk. I haven’t paid a motel bill in three years. I also get the breakfast room to myself. You have to watch that waffle maker, though. I slammed the top closed one time and burned my.......finger.
They’ll be coming for the bidets next...
Dumb headline.
Monitoring water usage is not what the title implies - cameras looking at you while you shower.
That being said, they have no right to and should not be allowed to do this to any business.
I think the EPA is so full of crap that they should be declared a hazardous waste site.
Is anybody here a Heinlein fan? My first thought was “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” where one of the heroes was staying at a Moon hotel and taking a nice long shower, enjoying for the first time “unmetered water.”
FUBO!!!
Obama the Peeping Tom...His newest legacy!
“noting that the average hotel shower currently lasts about eight minutes.”
Just HOW the HECK do they KNOW this?
They’re not reaching their spying on naked people quota?
The government full of perverts is at it again. I’d never go to a hotel ever again.
8 minute shower? Damn, I’d blow that average right out of the water. I count a hot steamy shower to be not only therapeutic, but a basic human right.
The EPA is out to deny me my civil rights!
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