I & I Editorial BoardWe imagine tens of millions of Americans want to clean up after a day at work struggling to earn enough to keep up with the Biden inflation. But a quick shower under a healthy stream is another luxury the White House wants to take away from Americans.
The current administration announced last week that it intends to force low-flow showerheads on the country that popularized showering, overriding an effort by the Trump administration to give consumers more options and reining in a government that believes it has no boundaries.
Donald Trump, like so many of the rest of us, had grown weary of the trickling drip from showerheads that caused us to stay in the shower longer so we could thoroughly rinse ourselves. His Department of Energy proposed to change the 2013 federal rule that set a limit on water flowing through shower heads to 2.5 gallons per minute, a flow rate that was initially established by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1992 — signed into law by President “kinder and gentler” George H.W. Bush
Had the revision gone through, the 2.5 GMP limit would have been applied to each individual nozzle in a shower head, rather than an entire head or unit, as was defined under the Obama administration, allowing for a greater flow of water. This is what many consumers wanted. They said so when they bought shower heads with multiple nozzles that were made to work around the 1992 rule.
A conservationist told the media the Trump rule could have allowed shower heads to put out “10, 15 gallons per minute.” The Biden administration, though, says we just can’t have that.
According to the Energy Department, the Obama rule saved consumers $111.1 billion in energy and water bills, 4.8 quads of energy, and 4.3 trillion gallons of water through 2020. To that we ask, “so what?” If consumers wish to conserve, that’s their choice. Policing the showers of private citizens is not a legitimate function of government.
But the principle of limited government doesn’t sit well with Democrats. Which is why the Biden White House has said it will review several of the previous administration’s other energy rules, including policies governing light bulbs, toilets, and dishwashers.
Meddling lawmakers and bureaucrats pat themselves and each other on their backs when they legislate and regulate on behalf of conservation and the environment. They like to think of themselves as moral and intellectual superiors pursuing noble objectives.
But the outcomes never match up to the promises. Americans end up inconvenienced – dishwasher cycles, for instance, can now take four to six hours, and still fail to clean the load, thanks to federal regulation – burdened with regulatory demands and red tape, and lighter in their wallets.
If Democrats can be counted on for one thing, it’s limiting Americans’ choices. Remember, it was Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist who can now call himself a Democrat because the two have become synonymous, who railed against Americans having choices of “23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers.” It wasn’t Trump, or any of the 2016 Republican presidential candidates. Nor was it a GOP senator or House member. It was a popular member of the Democratic Party.
Democrats believe there’s nothing in our lives too personal for them to supervise, too sacred for them to intervene in. Trump might have said some coarse things at rallies, and many of his tweets were unacceptable among our elitists, but at least he wasn’t determined to micromanage Americans’ lives.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
Let us be truthful, at this point Joe doesn’t have the ability to think.
Chairman XidenHarris isn’t capable of a continuous lucid thought. His horselaugh counterpart isn’t capable of thought at all. They do what they are told, say what they re Tod to and support what they are told to.