The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals pushed back this week on a Biden administration effort to tighten regulations on dishwashers and washing machines. …

The court ruled that it “is unclear that DOE has statutory authority to regulate water use in dishwashers and clothes washers.”

“But even if DOE has water-usage authority over the relevant appliances, the Department…failed to adequately consider the negative consequences of the Repeal Rule, including the substitution effects of energy-and-water-wasting rewashing, prewashing, and handwashing,” the court ruled. “And in all events, the 2022 DOE…failed to adequately consider the impact of the energy conservation program on ‘performance characteristics.'”

[It’s long past time for Congress to greatly restrict the regulatory reach of executive branch agencies like the Department of Energy. This kind of lawmaking properly belongs to Congress, not the executive branch. And this proposal, along with many others like it, would never have been passed by elected officials responsible to the voters. — Ed]