The Biden administration is advancing stricter efficiency requirements for household dishwashers that promise to pare water and greenhouse gas emissions as well as utility bills, years after former President Donald Trump exempted speed-cleaning models.
(Bloomberg) — The Biden administration is advancing stricter efficiency requirements for household dishwashers that promise to pare water and greenhouse gas emissions as well as utility bills, years after former President Donald Trump exempted speed-cleaning models.
Under the Energy Department’s proposed standard, conventional household dishwashers made in or imported into the US as soon as 2027 would have to use 27% less power and 34% less water — no more than 3.3 gallons during their normal, default cycles. Compact models would see a 22% and 11% reduction in power and water use, respectively. The requirements would not apply to other dishwasher cycles, including those with faster run times.
The dishwasher measure, advanced alongside requirements for electric motors and beverage vending machines, comes as the performance of gas stoves, washing machines and other household appliances draws scrutiny. And while the proposed dishwasher requirements promise to save consumers money over their lifetimes — roughly $168 million per year according to the Energy Department’s estimate — there could be higher initial costs, as manufacturers design new models to comply.
Federal regulators are under a congressional mandate to regularly review efficiency standards, though appliance makers have lobbied to end the process, arguing many products already operate at peak efficiency and more stringent requirements are likely to increase costs without a meaningful cut in energy bills.
The Energy Department estimated consumers would pay an extra $15 for a new standard-sized dishwasher, but could take in potentially three times that in reduced operating costs over the device’s lifetime. The agency also forecast proposed dishwasher requirements would yield $3 billion in utility bill savings over three decades of shipments, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 12.5 million metric tons and save 240 billion gallons of water, which the agency said is equivalent to 360,000 Olympic-sized pools. Some dishwashers currently for sale already would comply with the requirements, proposed under new Energy Department testing protocols meant to ensure cleaning performance still meets consumers’ expectations.
The Biden administration already rolled back a Trump-era dishwasher rule that created a new category of fast models — those whose default settings completed washing and drying cycles within an hour — not subject to water and energy conservation requirements.
While in the White House, Trump derided efficiency requirements for a range of household appliances, arguing they meant new toilets, shower heads and dishwashers didn’t work well, forcing consumers to flush more, rinse more and wash more. Trump even boasted during his reelection campaign that he’d “freed” up dishwashers from mandates he said prompted people to “run them 10 times” in a quest for clean cutlery.
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