The News
US President Donald Trump wants to end yet another war, beyond those in Ukraine and the Middle East: the “war on appliances.” But much like his geopolitical efforts, Trump’s version of victory in this particular war won’t be easy to achieve — and would likely undermine his overarching promise to lower household energy bills.
Among Trump’s first-week executive orders were promises to “safeguard the American people’s freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances” and to “eliminate counterproductive requirements that raise the costs of home appliances.” The pledges nod to rising energy efficiency standards for appliances and the moves by some states and cities to restrict gas stoves, a culture-war touchpoint for Trump supporters outraged by what they saw as overreach by Democrats in the pursuit of climate wins.
With Trump in office, an immediate halt in the drive toward appliances that are more efficient and use less fossil fuels may be the most tangible of the administration’s energy policy shifts for many US households. But it’s not likely to deliver the lower bills Trump has promised.
“If your concern is about lowering consumer energy costs, one of the most important tools is to ensure that things are using less energy,” said Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, an advocacy group.
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Tim’s view
Energy-efficient appliances are a niche area where one of Trump’s personal pet peeves — a relic from his days as a builder — overlaps with concerted lobbying from the natural gas industry, which fears being increasingly shut out of households.
The executive orders don’t give much detail about what Trump plans to do. But much of the work will fall to his nominee to lead the Energy Department, fracking executive Chris Wright, who seems on board with the project: In his Senate confirmation hearing, Wright said the Biden administration had chased appliance efficiency standards “where the trade-offs are simply not worth it,” and that “you should always be a little humble and cautious when proposing to reduce the choices of American consumers.”
But there are a few hitches with the anti-anti-appliance agenda. One is the 1975 law governing appliance efficiency standards, which bars an administration from adopting standards less stringent than existing ones. Rolling them back would require intervention from Congress (Trump has at least one key ally there: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced legislation this week to repeal a Biden regulation banning some gas-fired water heaters). Trump also railed against appliance efficiency during his first term, but ended up with very little to show for it in terms of changes in policy, manufacturers’ practices, or consumer choice trends, all of which continued to favor higher efficiency.
More importantly, reducing efficiency is directly at odds with Trump’s cost-of-living commitments. Research by deLaski’s group found that appliance standards adopted by Biden will save the average household about $107 annually for the next two decades (and, for what it’s worth, cut emissions equal to shuttering several coal-fired power plants). Appliance manufacturers, who have already made capital investments in R&D and assembly lines to meet new standards, also aren’t interested in pursuing any rollbacks, said Jill Notini, spokesperson for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. Loopholes to allow higher water and energy use by some appliances introduced during Trump’s first term were mostly ignored by manufacturers. Larry Lauck, president of the trade association for lightbulb manufacturers, agreed that loosening energy standards was both legally problematic and pointless because “the industry has moved on” to LEDs. Consumers themselves also tend to prefer newer, more energy-efficient appliances, research has found, and electric heat pumps are increasingly outselling gas furnaces.
There’s one more reason Trump should reconsider his stance on appliances, said Ari Matusiak, CEO of the advocacy group Rewiring America: Every watt that’s not being wasted by a lumbering dishwasher is one that could be redirected to a data center. If the US really is in the grips of an energy “emergency,” as Trump has declared, appliances are just about the easiest place to save a few electrons.
“We can use the headroom we’re creating [with more efficient appliances] to basically bank that and enable more data centers and more AI capability to get built,” he said.
Room for Disagreement
While manufacturers aren’t looking for rollbacks, Notini said, many believe they are running out of room to squeeze more efficiency gains from appliances without cutting into features that consumers want. For some appliances, she said, “we’re probably at peak efficiency now. So it’s like trying to draw blood from a stone.” Her group is pushing Congress to scrap the fixed timeline on which DOE is required to conduct efficiency reviews.
Notable
- Trump on Friday ordered a freeze on all renewable energy permitting on federal land, with the exception of projects reviewed by top-level officials, another move that will benefit fossil fuels but runs counter to closing the country’s electricity deficit.