Why Trump’s Dishwasher Diatribe Matters
Issues & Insights cites CEI’s dishwasher petition to the DOE:
The Competitive Enterprise Institute compiled data on dishwasher cycle times since 1983, using numbers from Consumer Reports product tests. Back then, the average cycle time was a little more than one hour. By 2018, the average was close to three hours.
The chart CEI produced shows that with every new federal efficiency mandate since 1983, cycle times jumped. Why? Because the mandates increasingly limit how much water and electricity dishwashers can use, so manufacturers have had to make them run longer “to help compensate for the negative impact on cleaning performance associated with decreasing water use and water temperature,” according to a 2016 Department of Energy report.
CEI petitioned the DOE for relief from this madness, and in November the agency said it is working on a new rule that would let manufacturers make faster-cleaning dishwashers that don’t have to comply with the pile of federal mandates.
