The Patriot Post® · The Left Now Wants Our Washing Machines

Not long after threatening the existence of the gas stove as a “hidden hazard” in the kitchen, the Biden administration is looking to make doing the laundry more expensive and time-consuming. It’s all in order to “confront the global climate crisis.”

Manufacturers of these appliances had a brief victory with relaxed standards for certain machines under the Trump administration. It was a rollback the Natural Resources Defense Council called “ridiculous,” claiming the Trump decision was “needlessly increasing consumer water and energy bills and climate-warming carbon pollution while exacerbating water shortages.” The NRDC eventually sued the Trump administration, demanding action on that and other appliance standards.

Clearly, the Biden regime got the memo.

On the other hand, when it comes to washers and dryers, consumers demand products that actually clean and dry clothes and aren’t a waste of money in the service of “high efficiency.” Manufacturers know this, too, and that’s why they’re questioning the need for new regulations when appliances are already significantly more efficient than they were a generation ago.

The Biden Department of Energy claims consumers will save $295 over the 14-year life of a new washer, but that estimate obviously fails to factor in the extra detergent and rewashing necessitated by loads of laundry that still reek.

A federal law passed during the Ford administration, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, was the initial camel’s nose under the regulatory tent for appliance makers, with the nascent DOE created under Jimmy Carter being placed in charge of the program soon after its formation. Since then, appliance makers have been placed under a labeling law (those yellow stickers you see on all those appliances detailing their energy use is a part of this), and the Energy Star program was eventually created.

Needless to say, appliances are far more energy efficient than they were a half-century ago (and in some cases are cheaper in real, inflation-adjusted dollars), but the tradeoff seems to come in an almost planned obsolescence, where appliances that are “smarter” thanks to all their computer programming seem to barely make it to the end of their extended warranties before going haywire. (Meanwhile, millions of garages and basements have “dumb” 30-year-old backup refrigerators and 20-year-old washer/dryer combos still going strong.)

The Biden washing machine rules are part of a mandatory DOE review process slated every six years, but apparently skipped under Donald Trump as the previous review came in 2012. While washer manufacturers did get a break, the appliance industry would still prefer the rule period be lengthened or simply abolished. “They keep tightening the standards, and I’m not sure their reasoning makes sense anymore,” said Travis Fisher of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment.

Given the recent claim by the appliance industry that Biden’s proposed gas stove rules would wipe out 96% of the market, it can be safely assumed that washer and dryer manufacturers will need to completely retool their products by the time the proposed rules would take effect in 2027. The Energy Department admitted as much, stating that manufacturers may need to “invest” up to $2 billion over the next three years to have products ready for the new regulations.

And that $295 savings the DOE is promising you? It’ll surely be outweighed by companies that, rather than eating their research and development expenses, will simply pass them on to the consumer.

When the idea of gas stove regulations first surfaced a few weeks ago, our Nate Jackson wrote: “There is NO constitutional authority for the administration to regulate what kind of stoves Americans buy. Yet there’s also no authority to regulate lightbulbs, or toilet flushes, or any number of other awful policies implemented by Democrats and Republicans alike.”

Ultimately, we can’t count on the Regulatory Commissars to get our clothes clean. But those old-school washers and dryers still do the job — and the extra dollar or two they add to the utility bill seems a small price to pay.