Burning through America’s energy efficiency standards
1 February 2025
President Trump has wasted no time in his second term to unravel appliance efficiency standards and take up the cause of the fossil fuel industry. Andrew Warren highlights some of his latest efforts to turn back the clock.
It is no secret that the new American President Donald Trump is determined to destroy anything he chooses to describe as ‘woke’. He is using his ‘Energy Emergency’ to undo as much of current legislation as possible that can be portrayed as not fulfilling his ‘drill, baby, drill‘ mantra.
His hatred of wind farms is notorious. His opposition to photovoltaics is well established, particularly if made in China. He doesn’t like electric vehicles.
But who previously knew about his loathing of modern refrigeration? Or efficient washing machines? Or less wasteful air conditioning units? Or even low flow showers?
Actually, that one is less of a surprise. Trump has long been distressed by the limited water flow from showerheads, saying during his first stint in the White House that he wasn’t getting wet enough in the shower as his hair needed to be ‘perfect‘. Trump has also claimed that people aren’t getting enough water out of their WC fixtures, and so have to flush their toilets 10 or 15 times.
He famously attacked energy-saving light bulb regulations. “They took away our light bulb. I want an incandescent light. I want to look better, okay?” Campaigning in Wisconsin, Trump incorrectly claimed that his opponents “wanted to rip down all the buildings in Manhattan and they wanted to rebuild them without windows”. No environmental plans ever included removing windows from buildings.
On his first day in office, Trump issued 186 Executive Orders. One little-noticed example was, in his words, to deregulate energy standards in appliances. How will he achieve that?
The work has already begun. During last year, there were a whole bunch of Republican congress people more than happy to promote Trump’s anti-energy efficiency agenda. No less than six Acts were passed by the House of Representatives, but they were never ratified by the US Senate because it then boasted a majority backing his predecessor, Joe Biden. That is no longer true.
Each of these Acts followed a consistent theme. Each was promoted by a Republican politician sure to be re-elected. Each basically addressed an electricity consuming item to be found in practically every American building. Each sought to ensure that there are no attempts to help reduce the amount of electricity that this gadget requires.
So, while the European Union has its Eco Design Directive that regularly mandates tighter and tighter requirements for efficient electricity consumption in consumer goods, these American politicians seem completely fixated in ensuring that their constituents can be as profligate as possible.
Circling the drain
Representative Andy Ogles, from Tennessee, is behind the Liberty in Laundry Act. This prohibits the government from ‘prescribing or enforcing energy conservation standards for clothes washers’.
His colleague Debbie Lesko is elected in Arizona. She has promoted the ‘Hands Off our Home Appliances Act’, which stops the Federal Government from placing new energy conservation standards on any household appliances.
Mississippi electors have chosen Mike Ezell, who has his Clothes Dryer Reliability Act. From Iowa comes Marianette Miller-Meeks, with her Refrigerator Freedom Act. Dan Crenshaw from Texas has an Affordable Air-Conditioning Act. And the New York congressman Nick Langworthy has a Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act.
These Acts are remarkably similar. In Lesko’s case, she seeks to repeal appliance efficiency regulations proposed by the Biden Administration last year – regulations that require refrigerator manufacturers to use less electricity and water over time as technology improves.
The US Department of Energy maintains these regulations, along with efficiency regulations on other appliances, would save Americans about $3.5 billion a year on energy and water bills. Energy efficient appliances are already lowering overall U.S. electricity consumption by 15% annually. By 2035, energy efficient standards would cumulatively reduce US annual emissions by an average 81 million tons.
But proponents of the Refrigerator Freedom Act maintain they force Americans to give up the appliances they love. “Americans can hardly afford to stock their refrigerators with food, and now Democrats want to take the damn refrigerator away as well,” Rep. Van Drew from New Jersey argued during the relevant debate.
Trump has appointed to his Cabinet as energy secretary Chris Wright. He is a Texan who is the CEO of one of American’s largest fracking companies, ironically called Liberty Energy. Hence the Liberty in Laundry Act?
He is also adamantly opposed to the philosophy championed by the late US President Jimmy Carter, who frequently trumpeted the importance of conserving energy – he described as “the moral equivalent of war”.
In direct contrast, Wright’s bombast includes the claim that “any negative impacts of climate change are clearly overwhelmed by the benefits of increasing energy consumption”. In other words, forget about bothering to save any fuel at all. Just burn, baby, burn.
Andrew Warren chairs the British Energy Efficiency Federation
