Washington stops micromanaging your appliances as Trump targets Biden rules

President Donald Trump has diverged sharply from his predecessor on almost every issue, perhaps most notably when it comes to federal regulations on home appliances. The Biden administration loved regulating appliances, imposing new requirements for stoves, dishwashers, furnaces, air conditioners, water heaters, light bulbs, refrigerators, washing machines and much more. Trump wasted no time in targeting such interference by issuing an executive order on Inauguration Day reviewing these regulations, and his administration is making progress on this priority. Here’s a look at what the administration has accomplished in the first year when it comes to regulating appliances — and what remains to be done.

1. Dishwashers and washing machines — These are arguably the two most overregulated household appliances. Washing machines have faced six rounds of successively stricter energy and water consumption limits over the decades, while dishwashers have had four, and the results have been downright painful for consumers. There is evidence that washing machines now require extra maintenance and don’t clean as well or last as long. And dishwashers take two hours or more to finish a load of dishes, twice the time it took before the federal government started tinkering with them. Nonetheless, Biden’s Department of Energy (DOE) has imposed a new round of restrictions for both devices that will take effect over the next few years.

Fortunately, the current DOE has proposed repealing the most problematic parts of these regulations, so washing machines and dishwashers might actually start getting better rather than worse.

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2. Central air conditioners — All of these appliance regulations raise prices, but by far the biggest increase is on residential air conditioning systems. A homeowner replacing a 15-year-old system that probably cost around $5,000 when new will likely pay more than double that amount today. While several factors play a role in this unfortunate trend, the main reason is a rule from the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requiring all cooling systems manufactured after January 1, 2025, to meet new climate change requirements. Industry sources report price hikes of up to $3,000 last summer — the first under Biden’s regulatory regime — and that’s on top of other actions from the EPA and DOE that had already raised prices in previous years.

Trump’s EPA is trying to reverse the trend by proposing a rule providing more compliance flexibility for these systems. If successful, this could help moderate any further increases in air conditioning costs.

3. Water heater – It’s the appliance homeowners rarely think about until the moment it stops working, but Biden regulators have paid a lot of attention to water heaters. A December 2024 DOE regulation would have effectively banned tankless gas water heaters – those that heat water as needed and do not require a storage tank – by imposing prohibitively expensive new requirements. Fortunately, this past April, Congress and President Trump passed legislation repealing this regulation and thus preserving the tankless option for homeowners who prefer it. However, the deregulation news on conventional tank water heaters isn’t so good, with a separate Biden-era regulation still in effect that is expected to increase costs by up to $953 when it takes effect in 2029.

4. Ovens — Biden’s 2023 oven regulations may be the worst yet to be revisited by the Trump administration. It effectively bans non-condensing gas furnaces, which are the best option for millions of older homes. Even the DOE estimates that this rule will result in a cost increase of up to $853 when it takes effect in 2028. Industry sources fear a larger price increase, which would disproportionately affect low-income homeowners.

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5. Showers — Trump complains a lot about federal restrictions on the use of water for showers, but he alone cannot repeal them since they stem directly from a 1992 law that can only be overturned with help from Congress. But modest improvements are possible, and the president issued an executive order and a DOE rule adding a little more wiggle room to how the agency interprets the law. Therefore, water consumption limits now apply to each nozzle rather than the overall unit, so showers with two or more nozzles are legal. A bill recently passed by the House would codify this change, but there is no Senate version yet.

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Overall, the Trump administration initiated numerous appliance-related deregulations in its first year, but what’s just as important is what Washington stopped doing: It’s no longer piling on new regulatory restrictions, as Biden did at a breakneck pace for four years and a President Kamala Harris most likely would have continued to do. On the contrary, the federal authorities have made an about-face and are now focusing on reviewing the measures already in force and modifying them.

It’s a good start, but it’s only a start. Some of the reforms mentioned above can and should go further, and there are still several appliance regulations, such as those regarding boilers and water heaters, that have not yet been addressed. We can only hope that the fight for homeowners remains a priority of the Trump administration over the next three years.