Once again, President Trump is breaking the brains of the left-leaning media. This time, it’s his administration’s effort to legalize dishwashers built to wash dishes quickly.
When the New York Times covered this deregulatory push, the reporter framed her piece as a matter of “the dishwasher lobby” teaming up with industry-aligned conservative groups to battle against the Sierra Club. But it isn’t so. A few paragraphs in, the reporter changed her attack on the proposed deregulation, painting it as extreme because this “regulatory rollback is in fact opposed by the very industry the White House claims it will help.”
Jason Hartke of the industry-backed Alliance to Save Energy complained of Trump’s Energy Department, “I don’t think they’re listening to industry.”
How thoughtless of the administration, to think of customers instead of industry.
Here’s the truth of the matter: The dishwasher industry, the Sierra Club, and New York Times reporters all want regulations that restrict consumer choice in dishwashers. Free market groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and FreedomWorks oppose those regulations. They seem to have persuaded the Trump administration to expand consumer choice by deregulating.
And here’s the interesting pattern: Trump continues to roll back regulations, and he keeps running into resistance from the very industries being regulated.
The auto industry has fought Trump’s efforts to roll back Obama-era rules on fuel economy. The most aggressive opponents of Trump’s deregulation have formed the National Coalition for Advanced Transportation, which is suing to block any liberalization of fuel economy mandates. That coalition is, in fact, an industry lobby made up of Tesla and electrical utilities such as Exelon that want people to fuel up at the power outlet rather than the pump.
When the Trump administration announced it would roll back Obama’s methane emissions rules for oil and gas producers, relief that small producers desperately wanted, Exxon, BP, and the other biggest producers objected.
It’s the same with dishwashers. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers is on the record, both in the federal register and in the press, opposing a deregulation of dishwashers.
This has upset people who believe that if an industry supports a regulation, then everyone is supposed to get on board. Still, there is a contradiction at work here. The game plan of the Left has traditionally been to avoid arguing over the costs and benefits of a proposed regulation but instead to demonize “industry.” But, increasingly, industry wants to be regulated.
Why does industry so often support regulation and oppose deregulation?
Sometimes it’s just a hunt for the imaginary creature known as “regulatory certainty.” Sometimes it’s pure regulatory robbery, as with Tesla and Exelon trying to tax their competitors and drive business to themselves. If a dishwasher manufacturer has invested millions in meeting Obama-era standards, it sees the upside of that investment as having raised barriers to entry — it makes it harder for new entrants to the market to compete. Roll back those mandates, and then you have to simply hope that consumers actually value your “improvements,” given a choice. That’s a gamble.
But there’s another often missed explanation. Maybe the regulations are just as bad for shareholders as they are for customers. But maybe the regulations are good for the Washington lobbyists, both the in-house lobbyists and the folks at the K Street trade associations. Those folks hate it when Washington gets less involved in their clients’ business. Trump wasn’t elected to serve those people. He wasn’t elected to look after big business, either.
Daniel Simmons in Trump’s Energy Department put it well: “It’s not our job to meet industry’s wishes.”
