Court blocks Biden effort to tighten regulations on washing machines, dishwashers

By Casey Harper
The Center Square

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals pushed back on a Biden administration effort to tighten regulations on dishwashers and washing machines.

In 2022, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on his first day in office that led to the Department of Energy replacing a less strict Trump-era rule on those appliances with a more stringent rule for energy and water use.

Critics lamented the much longer amount of time needed for cleaning under the Biden rule and said Americans were paying more for the appliances that left the clothes and dishes less clean.

"This decision allows manufacturers to build better dishwashers, not be encumbered by counterproductive federal regulations," said Devin Watkins, an attorney for the Competitive Enterprise, a group that helped lead the pushback on the Biden administration's new rule.

The critics filed suit against the Biden administration, and the court ruled in against the Biden administration, suggesting the DOE violated federal law with its effort and may not have legal standing to regulate the appliances nearly as much as the agency has claimed.

The court ruled that it "is unclear that DOE has statutory authority to regulate water use in dishwashers and clothes washers."

"But even if DOE has water-usage authority over the relevant appliances, the Department…failed to adequately consider the negative consequences of the Repeal Rule, including the substitution effects of energy-and-water-wasting rewashing, prewashing, and handwashing," the court ruled. "And in all events, the 2022 DOE…failed to adequately consider the impact of the energy conservation program on 'performance characteristics.'"

It remains unclear if the Biden administration will appeal.

"A federal appeals court shut down part of Biden's effort, striking down administration mandates targeting everyday dishwashers and laundry machines," O.H. Skinner, the executive director for the Alliance for Consumers, said in a statement after the ruling. "Importantly, the court also explained that the left's 'energy efficient' appliances simply do not live up to their billing because making people wash things twice is the opposite of being good for consumers or 'efficient.'"

"Whether household appliances or electric vehicles, 'energy efficient' products compromise performance and waste energy," Skinner added. "No surprise then that the administration has had to resort to mandates to get these products into people's homes."

A coalition of states filed the lawsuit, backed by some consumer and interest groups. The states in question are Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

"It's not 'energy efficient to have to wash your dishes and clothes twice (for hours)," Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who led the lawsuit, wrote on X. "The Biden Administration's dishwasher rule saved neither energy nor water. For families- moms, dads, and kids who do laundry and dishes, this is a big win! We want appliances that work. I'll keep fighting these irrational attacks on families and consumers by bureaucrats in D.C."