DOE adopts CEI view on appliance water and energy limits
Photo Credit: Getty
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released new rules on appliance energy and water limits Friday that agreed with the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) statutory interpretation of DOE’s lack of statutory authority to limit water use in appliances, a major victory for consumers. In a lawsuit against DOE on behalf of individual consumers, CEI argued that department-mandated water limits for clothes washers and dishwashers were unlawful because they exceeded the limits set by Congress.
On Friday, the DOE issued three rules, one for each of clothes washers, compact clothes washers, and dishwashers. These rules set the limit for water use back to the value set by Congress due to a lack of legal authority, just as CEI’s lawsuit argued. DOE further recognized, for instance, with dishwashers, that “the regulatory water use restrictions appear to lessen the utility of dishwashers by lengthening the time it takes to wash dishes.” And that “Consumers are best situated to decide whether a given product is economically justified, as that is precisely what the free market does best.”
“The DOE’s return to focusing on the needs of consumers is commendable. As DOE now recognizes, federal limits on water use have made appliances slower and less effective for consumers,” said CEI attorney Devin Watkins, who served as counsel in CEI’s lawsuit against DOE. “Additionally, DOE recognized that it lacks lawful authority to increase limits on the water use of home appliances, exactly what we argued in our lawsuit. We are glad that DOE will once again allow appliances that are faster, more effective, and better suited to consumers’ needs.”
A second major win on appliance energy and water limits occurred earlier this month when House Joint Resolution 20 was signed into law by President Trump. That resolution used the Congressional Review Act to revoke energy limits for tankless water heaters. CEI led a coalition letter to Congress asking for this rule to be revoked, calling it one of the worst appliance regulations issued by the Biden administration. It would have effectively banned tankless water heaters by making them prohibitively expensive, adding hundreds of dollars to the cost.
“From the moment the Biden administration proposed its ill-advised restrictions on water heaters in 2023, CEI has been making the case against this anti-consumer regulation. And in 2025 we worked with both House and Senate offices on resolutions repealing it. These resolutions passed and the repeal was signed into law by President Trump,” said CEI senior fellow Ben Lieberman. “CEI is proud to be a part of killing off this bad regulation and will continue our efforts on other regulations as well as the larger task of foundational reforms to the regulatory state.”
More from CEI: