President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday aimed at weakening federal rules that restrict how much water can flow through showerheads.
In the order, Trump directed the Department of Energy to roll back water efficiency standards that limit the amount of water per minute allowed to flow through showerheads, which the president has blamed for poor water pressure.
A federal law in 1992 set standards that new showerheads cannot release more than 2.5 gallon of water per minute. As new showerheads were released in the market with multinozzles, the Obama administration set standards allowing for no more than 2.5 gallons of water to come out of a showerhead collectively. The Trump administration is now repealing those standards.
“In my case, I would like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair. For 15 minutes until it gets wet. Drip, drip, drip. Ridiculous,” Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office when signing the order.
“What you do is you end up washing your hands five times longer, so it’s the same water. And we’re going to open it up so that people can live,” he added.
The regulation was first implemented by the Obama administration but later repealed in Trump’s first term. Former President Joe Biden reimplemented the Obama administration’s standards.
“It sounds like the administration is gearing up to do the same gimmick they did last time where they’ll specifically allow products with many nozzles in a manner designed to get around the 1992 law,” Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, said in a statement. “No major showerhead manufacturer even bothered to sell such a device last time.”
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Republicans have long attacked Democrats’ efforts to set rules on water or energy for home appliances, arguing that those regulations limit consumer choice and raise costs.
“It’s not just showers — the Biden administration aggressively targeted everyday appliances like gas stoves, water heaters, washing machines, furnaces, dishwashers, and more, waging war on the reliable tools Americans depend on daily,” a White House official said.
House Republicans have been reversing Biden regulations related to home appliances through a special legislative process known as the Congressional Review Act. The process allows lawmakers to bypass the filibuster and take a simple majority vote in both chambers to end federal rules.
