Missing but Still Active

Consumers are going to find the “waning days” of the Biden administration especially costly, reports James Freeman in the WSJ.

From Ben Lieberman, writing at the Competitive Enterprise Institute:

At this point, it is easier to name the major home appliances that have not been hit with bad regulations from the Biden administration – televisions are off the hook. But for just about everything else, Department of Energy (DOE) bureaucrats are going all out with anti-consumer rules, including ones for furnaces, air conditioners, washing machines and dryers, light bulbs, refrigerators, ceiling fans, dishwashers, and stoves. And with the administration’s days counting down, they’re still trying to push more unwanted regulations out the door, most recently with a final rule cracking down on gas-fired instantaneous (tankless) water heaters…

An advantage of tankless water heaters is, ironically, energy efficiency. Tankless water heaters provide hot water only when needed and avoid having a full tank of heated water constantly held in reserve.

Nonetheless, the bottom-line effect of the rule is that tankless water heaters will become prohibitively costly for many, if not most, prospective buyers.

The rule cannot be justified by consumer benefits – there aren’t any… Fortunately, the incoming Trump administration hates appliance regulations as much as the current administration loves them. Let’s hope the tankless water heater rule gets the ax under the Congressional Review Act.