Free Republic

Taking up space in my kitchen is a G.E. dishwasher. We rarely use it because, frankly, it sucks. Too often, dishes must be rewashed after a cycle long enough that it might scrub the glaze from the ceramic, obviating the point of having an appliance dedicated to that task. My complaint isn't isolated; Americans have complained for years that appliances which once saved time and energy now produce frustration—largely because of regulations that hobble their ability to function. To their credit, the Trump administration and members of Congress are rolling back red tape and liberating appliances. The result should be...

Acting to please a constituency that prefers scarcity over abundance, Joe Biden ordered up a list of federal rules that restricted consumer choice. Given the exhaustive White House agenda that began when Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, it would have been unsurprising had he waited to unwind the Biden regulatory knot. But to his credit, Trump has been moving on that, too. Ignoring the left’s constant “we’re running out of everything” screeching, Trump restored “shower freedom” earlier this month with an executive order “to end the Obama-Biden war on water pressure.” The new rule rescinds “the overly complicated...

Failed Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is facing condemnation from conservatives after she appeared on MSNBC to defend a $2 billion initiative under the Biden administration's EPA to purchase green energy appliances for Americans. "Stacey Abrams linked Power Forward Communities received $2 billion in tax dollars in 2024 after reporting just $100 in revenue the year before. They were so unqualified that the grant agreement required the NGO to complete ‘How to Develop a Budget’ training within 90 days," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in comment provided to Fox Digital on Sunday. "$2 billion in hard earned tax dollars...

Yes, that’s the sound of Trump directing the EPA and Department of Energy to reverse nearly every Biden regulation on home appliances and fixtures – everything from toilets to lawnmowers – in one big beautiful executive order that he signed on Day One, and reminded his EPA administrator yesterday to move quickly to implement:Now you only have to flush once. Now you can take a real shower and not wait to trickle down.No longer will the nanny state tell you what kind of car you can put in your garage. What kind of lawn mower, weed wacker, or sprinkler you...

President Donald Trump is waging war against former President Joe Biden’s green energy regulations on Americans’ household appliances.Trump made the announcement in a social media post at 5:57 a.m. on Tuesday and said he was instructing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Secretary Lee Zeldin to oversee the matter, Fox News reported.The president wrote in his post:I am hereby instructing Secretary Lee Zeldin to immediately go back to my Environmental Orders, which were terminated by Crooked Joe Biden, on Water Standards and Flow pertaining to SINKS, SHOWERS, TOILETS, WASHING MACHINES, DISHWASHERS, etc., and to likewise go back to the common sense standards...

Under the policy, new non-condensing, natural gas-fired water heaters will be prohibited for sale starting in 2029 due to concerns about carbon-dioxide emissions. The policy comes during President Biden's twilight days in the White House and was quietly announced without a press release. If the policy takes effect, as it is slated to on March 11, a little less than 40% of the tankless water heaters currently on the market would be banned, according to an estimate from the Appliance Standards Awareness Project.

Welcome to Germany’s green economic miracle. The year is 2025! Germany’s so-called Energiewende (transition to renewable energies) has had one unmistakable result: Germany now finds itself rapidly nearing the brink of a third world country where the power supply is no longer reliable and brownouts becoming more and more a daily routine. What’s happening is the opposite of what was once promised by the know-it-all climate wisemen: “Green energies would lead to a clean and prosperous country that would be the envy of the world. So much for their fantasies. The reality, as reported yesterday by Germany’s leading daily, Bild...

The Biden administration is banning certain natural gas water heaters from the market as part of its climate change agenda, a move critics say will jack up energy costs for low-income and senior households. The move in the final days of the administration will take non-condensing, natural gas-fired water heaters off the shelves by 2029 in a bid to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which climate change advocates and President Biden say cause global warming. The new rules will require new tankless gas water heaters to use about 13% less energy than today’s least efficient tankless models. The rules apply to...

Last-minute Biden regulations expected to cost consumers $450 more, one analysis shows... The Biden administration finalized climate regulations to ban most natural gas-powered instantaneous water heaters—a move that critics say will drive up costs for consumers. The Department of Energy—which formally published the rules the day after Christmas—didn’t issue a press release announcing the action, a departure from past appliance regulations. The published rules say the regulations are expected to help the climate by curbing carbon dioxide emissions. Overall, under the regulations, roughly 40 percent of the new tankless water heaters available in the United States today will be taken...

Kamala Harris wants to deprive Americans of the right to choose cars and household appliances. When she claims, as she did at a rally last week in Michigan, that “I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive” she is guilty of two of the Democrats’ most reviled offenses, malinformation (failure to contextualize a statement) and misinformation (lying).Combating climate by changing infrastructure, consumer goods, and lifestyle is one of Harris’s core values. As recently as this year, the Biden-Harris administration continued to issue regulations and battle in court for the right to reduce consumer options for...

The entire goal of the environmental Left is full-on communism. They wrap their ideology in a green cloak, but inside it's Soviet red. And like all good commies, they want a society with two classes: the elites (themselves) and the rest of us. For the elites, life is great. They have money, and food, and nice houses. They travel and enjoy comforts like air conditioning, gas stoves, and refrigeration. For the rest of us? Sweat it out in a dumpy, rundown state-owned apartment while you eat bugs and live in abject poverty. They've said their goal is to reduce our...

Each time the Department of Energy (DOE) finalized regulations targeting popular home appliances—including stoves, clothes washers, refrigerators, and water heaters—over the last several months, the agency included a similar line in the announcement: The new rules were crafted with the help of recommendations from a "wide range of stakeholders." According to the DOE, the stakeholders included industry partners and consumer advocacy organizations. A Washington Free Beacon review, however, shows 7 out of the 10 stakeholders whose recommendations DOE consulted are climate activist groups or left-leaning consumer groups. Those groups collectively boast substantial financial backing from grantmaking nonprofits that regularly funnel...

A blast from the past! 1:05 VIDEO AT LINK. I'd buy that ! We just paid $2000 for a new LG fridge that I hate..........

We are almost halfway through 2024 and some new laws and restrictions may soon be on the horizon here in New York State. Need a new freezer for those freezie pops this summer? How about a new fridge for that cold beer? There may soon be a limit on which models of freezers and refrigerators you can buy. New York is quickly becoming one of the most aggressive states when it comes to going green or being more environmentally protective. There are constant rumors and worries about whether or not gas appliances will be taken away and a fear about...

Democrats and Republicans banded together to pass a bill on Tuesday aimed at blocking the Biden administration from banning everyday home appliances that run on natural gas. The Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act, which passed 212 to 195, is one facet of a sweeping bill targeting the Department of Energy (DOE) introduced by Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz. Seven Democrats voted in favor of the bill, which received no Republican dissent. "I am saddened that we would need such a bill," Lesko told Fox News Digital in a statement. "However, as we have experienced under this administration, the Department of...

LOS ANGELES - Many Southern California customers are frustrated and confused to learn that they might not be receiving their expensive appliance orders, purchased through the luxury appliance store Pirch, when all locations suddenly closed this week. "Are we getting our merchandise? Are we getting a refund?" asked one customer, Maribell Rodriguez. Rodriguez told FOX 11 that she has yet to receive any answers from Pirch regarding her order since the company's abrupt closure Wednesday. She is in the middle of a home renovation and just took out a $20,000 loan to pay for the appliances. "I really feel that...

Frank Rodriguez in San Francisco says he has been dealing with a difficult LG fridge since 2021. “This one cost me $2,000 and it’s been a nightmare,” he said. He says it’s not freezing well. Techs have repeatedly tried to fix it, but haven’t. Frank says he’s asked for a replacement or a refund. But that hasn’t happened. *snip* LG says it put an arbitration notice on the box. It’s now asking a federal judge to require individual fridge owners to move their case to arbitration -- in private. But owners we interviewed say they never saw the box because...

Between 2013 and 2023, Americans’ spending on home appliances jumped 53 percent. Adjusted for inflation, that’s an annual increase of $390 to $558. But the cost of appliances decreased by 12 percent during that same time. How is that possible? Well, as the Wall Street Journal explains, one “reason for the discrepancy between [higher] spending and [lower] prices is a higher rate of replacement[.]” Over a mere two years, “Yelp users … requested 58% more quotes from thousands of appliance repair businesses last month than they did in January 2022.” “We’re making things more complicated, they’re harder to fix and...

When Jessica Romer pulls clothes out of her new washer-dryer, they feel cool and a bit damp but dry to the touch within seconds. Using no electric heating element or natural gas, the unit’s dryer employs a pump to draw in ambient heat from its surroundings, making it 50% more energy efficient than traditional models—though without producing that warm, toasty feel. “It’s different and strange,” said Romer, who lives in northern Florida, “but it does work.” Whether Romer’s heat-pump dryer represents the pinnacle of energy efficiency or just the latest stop on a long climb is part of a debate...

(excerpt) According the notice, Electrolux Group—the parent company of Frigidaire—is recalling about 383,240 of their side-by-side fridges with slim ice buckets. The reason? There is an ice bucket assembly component that can easily break and as a result, cause either a choking or laceration hazard through the pieces being dispensed out of the ice bucket. (excerpt) As the recall notes, the models included were manufactured between 2015 and 2019 and were sold at nationwide retailers such as Lowe's, Home Depot and more. Dates that the items in question were sold fall between November 2015 and September 2019 and between the...