U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order intended to eliminate federal limits on showerhead and home appliance water pressure—a subject he often brought up during his campaign.
"I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair," Trump said at the signing at the White House. "I have to stand in the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It's ridiculous."
As per an official White House fact sheet released with the order, the action aims to "free Americans from burdensome regulations that made a simple household product into a bureaucratic nightmare." Trump also promised to roll back what he referred to as the "Obama-Biden war on water pressure" and promised to "make America's showers great again."
"We're going to eliminate those limitations. You have a lot of areas where they have water, they have so much water they don't know what to do with it. But the people purchase a home, they turn on the faucet, and water hardly comes out. They shower, water hardly comes out. And it's an unjustified limitation," the President explained.
The order includes sharp criticism of earlier administrations, accusing them of excessive regulatory control.
"Twice in the last 12 years, those administrations put out massive regulations defining the word ‘showerhead.’ The Biden definition was a staggering 13,000 words. The Oxford English Dictionary, by contrast, defines ‘showerhead’ in one short sentence."
Trump's order aims to make the federal definition of a showerhead simpler, which initially came from a 1992 law that capped showers at a maximum flow rate of 2.5 gallons per minute. Under this new order, the president indicated showerheads would no longer be "weak and worthless" and would permit stronger water flow.
Major Points of the Executive Order:
Restoring Previous Standards
The rule reverses the Obama-Biden rule that defined a "showerhead" as a "nozzle" and imposed limits on multi-nozzle showers if the combined output exceeded the 2.5-gallon-per-minute threshold.
Resistence Against Environmental Regulation
The Trump administration contends that those limits were ideology rather than pragmatic, attributing blame to "radical green agendas" that restrict consumer preference and individual convenience.
Consumer Rights and Freedom
"Americans pay for their own water," the order states. "They ought to be able to use it as they see fit—free from bureaucratic meddling."
Beyond Showerheads
This executive measure is part of a wider effort to make household appliances less heavily regulated. The Trump administration is also going after Biden-era regulations that cover gas stoves, washing machines, furnaces, and dishwashers, arguing that those appliances have become poorer quality as a result of overregulation.
No Basis for Oversight
Trump's administration insists there is no economic necessity or market failure to warrant such federal overreach, deeming the regulations an unjustified intrusion into people's homes.
A Continuation of Deregulatory Efforts
The action is one more in Trump's continuous move to minimize what he considers to be overregulation. Toplines of his wider effort include:
- Rolling back several executive orders signed under Biden's leadership.
- Directing agencies to cut through red tape to encourage economic growth.
- Making deregulation a main plank of his re-election campaign.
