Steve Marshall opposes Biden's regulations to make washing machines more costly

Last week Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) joined a coalition of 24 state attorneys general in opposing the Biden administration's latest overreach into the laundry rooms of middle-class Americans. The administration's new rule attempts to further the environmental left's ambitious energy agenda by imposing costly new standards on washing machines. Marshall and the other AGs warn that Biden's regulations will only make it more expensive to purchase new washing machines continuing to drive inflation and make it harder for Americans to make ends meet.

"Whether it is your car, kitchen, or laundry room, the Biden-Harris administration is going to find ways to hike our bills in the name of the radical left's climate agenda," said Attorney General Marshall. "Too often 'high efficiency' just means the machine is terrible at washing clothes. If consumers want to choose a more expensive and less effective washing machine, let them. However, we believe the White House should not be making those decisions for all of us. People are having a hard enough time affording the basics in this economy, yet this administration keeps piling on the costs."

The action comes in the wake of a newly released direct final rule regulating residential clothes washers that does not consider the economic impact on American consumers who will face appliance cost hikes due to the new regulations. The attorneys general, in a letter to the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm have asked the Department to abandon the rule or, at a minimum, allow notice and comment rulemaking before enacting the standards.

It is not just the attorneys general highlight this. Several appliance companies as well as the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) have expressed major concerns with the standards proposed by DOE.

"AHAM's comment stressed that the proposed rule would 'eliminate consumer features, reduces choice, significantly increases cost, and/or negatively impacts product performance.'...

Whirlpool, another one of AHAM's members, wrote separately to further emphasize that the proposed rule was not economically justified. Research conducted by Whirlpool showed a 25% increase cost for consumers and a potential 31% loss in industry net present value, which could result in more than 8,000 American job losses."

AHAM, advocacy groups, and a select group of states, after reaching an impasse, did eventually consent to the new rule in a joint statement. However, as the attorneys general note that statement "was the result of administrative arm-twisting and did not address issues raised by important stakeholders during the period for comments on the proposed rule... The joint statement also relies largely on the support of several advocacy groups, including the Alliance for Water Efficiency, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, the Natural Resource Defense Council, Earthjustice, and the National Consumer Law Center. These niche advocacy groups do not represent the interests of everyday consumers, and their input should not be given significant weight by DOE."

The attorneys general continue to argue that by law DOE cannot issue this rule without agreement from across the ideological spectrum. By statute, this type of rule "must come from 'interested persons that are fairly representative of the relevant points of view.'" Massachusetts and California may agree with the Biden Administration, but many states do not. As the attorneys general note, "[a] handful of States favor DOE's proposal, while a much larger group of States strongly oppose it. DOE cannot cherry pick the States with which it is politically aligned to circumvent the ordinary rulemaking process."

The attorneys general call on the Department of Energy to allow the public a chance to comment on this regulation as it will "reach its way into homes". Florida, and the coalition, urge DOE to seriously reevaluate its direct final rule in light of all this information.

Attorney General Marshall and Attorney General Moody were joined on the letter by the attorneys general from: Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia.

Again this is another example of the Biden administration creating new dictatorial powers for itself out of thin air without legislation passing through the Congress to impose their new draconian dictates on an industry that Americans across the socioeconomic spectrum rely on every day.

Steve Marshall was appointed Attorney General by then Gov. Robert Bentley (R) in 2017. He was elected in his own right in 2018 and re-elected in 2020. Prior to that he served for nearly two decades as the district attorney of Marshall County. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and the University of Alabama School of Law.