A coalition of 23 state attorneys general, including Florida’s chief legal advisor, is calling on the Biden administration to abandon a new federal rule to improve the efficiency of washing machines.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and officials from mostly Republican states sent a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on July 3, calling on the Department of Energy (DOE) to either abandon the rule or provide more time for stakeholder comments.
The letter to Granholm acknowledges that an industry group, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM), and environmental advocacy groups had already consented to the rule change, but the attorneys general say, without evidence, that this was the result of “arm-twisting.”
“The Biden administration remains adamant on continuing to push radical, stringent and costly energy policies directly into your household in hopes that no one will notice – this time, weaseling into our laundry rooms,” Moody said in a prepared statement. “As a mom and your attorney general, I am proud to fight on behalf of moms against white baseball pants and push back to keep these senseless policies out of American households.”
In an email to the Florida Record, AHAM expressed support for the final rule.
“AHAM supports the final clothes washer rule which reduced the stringency of the standards from the proposed version, thus addressing the concerns we raised with the original proposal,” the AHAM statement says. “Manufacturers will be able to deliver more efficient clothes washers while maintaining the performance and features consumers expect.”
The new rule would save 14 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions over three decades, or the equivalent of the annual CO2 emissions from 1.8 million homes, according to the DOE. But the attorneys general argue that the new rule would lead to washing machine price hikes and “washers that (will) take longer to clean clothes, ultimately leading to greater financial burdens falling on American families.”
The policy group Environment America, however, said the new standards for washing machines and dryers would mean less energy intensity, cleaner clothes and cleaner air. The washing machine rule is part of a series of initiatives the administration has advanced that will result in the average family saving $100 annually through lower utility bills, according to the DOE.
The attorneys general noted in their letter that AHAM and manufacturers such as Whirlpool had concerns with a previous washing machine efficiency proposal. Research conducted by Whirlpool found that the previous proposal would have led to a 25% increase in consumer costs and thousands of U.S. job losses, the letter to Granholm states.
“After months of AHAM opposing the proposed rule, they changed their minds and submitted a joint statement with the same political advocacy groups that have supported DOE from the beginning,” the letter states. “Arm-twisting is not always obvious … but when manufacturers raise serious concerns only to suddenly abandon them, it raises questions about the agency’s methods of achieving its seemingly political ends.”
The DOE, however, has said that the process was characterized by stakeholder input among manufacturers and advocacy groups, including the National Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice and the National Consumer Law Center.
The letter to Granholm also doesn’t explain how the clothes washer rule, which will result in savings of only 3% relative to the energy use of appliances currently for sale, amounts to a radical overreach of executive authority.
In a letter to the DOE earlier this month, AHAM expressed support for the outcome that resulted from stakeholder discussions.
“DOE has, as required by the law, satisfactorily dealt with the concerns we raised in our comments and correctly indicates that many of the concerns we raised in comments on the proposed rule are cured by the less stringent levels DOE adopts in the DFR (direct final rule),” the letter states.