The Department of Energy issued a final rule to replace Trump-era energy efficiency rules meant to allow for dishwashers and clothes dryers with shorter cycle times.
The new rule published Wednesday overturns changes that had established new “normal cycle” product classes for residential washers and dryers, which in turn made existing federal energy and water conservation regulations inapplicable to those appliances. The reversal was praised by environmentalists but is likely to disappoint users frustrated with long washing and drying cycles.
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The DOE concluded the previous rules fell short of meeting requirements of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. The final rule returns residential dishwasher classifications either to “standard” or “compact.”
Product classes for clothes washers and dryers are also returned to their classifications before the Trump-era rules, which are based on clothes container capacity and whether the appliance is front-loading or top-loading.
The Appliance Standards Awareness Project, which supported the rollback of the Trump rules, said those rules “were unneeded because the vast majority of today’s dishwashers already offer short cycles, which in some instances consume modestly more energy than the default cycles but are used infrequently.”
Attorney Devin Watkins of the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, which had petitioned for a class of dishwashers with shorter cycles, criticized the move by Biden’s DOE.
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“President Biden’s decision to block faster 1-hour dishwashers will waste the time of many American consumers,” Watkins said. “The Biden Energy Department says allowing these new types of dishwashers would run counter to the purpose of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, but the agency fails to consider the purpose of a dishwasher — to clean dishes effectively and quickly.”
