Court deals blow to Biden dishwasher efficiency rule — but stops short of tossing it

A federal court dealt a blow late Monday to a Biden administration rule that sought to make dishwashers and laundry machines more efficient, but it did not appear to go as far as throwing the rule out.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined the Biden administration’s rule did not adequately consider appliance performance or other alternatives to its action.

It called the rule “arbitrary and capricious” and sent it back to the Energy Department (DOE) to address these issues. However, it did not appear to eliminate the existing rule in the meantime.

Nevertheless, opponents of the existing rule touted the court’s decision as a victory.

“This is a massive win. The Court directly adopted several of the arguments we presented to it,” Devin Watkins, an attorney with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said in a written statement to The Hill.

“It also implies that DOE may be far more limited in the regulation of water use at all for dishwashers and other appliances outside of showerheads, faucets, water closets, and urinals,” Watkins added. 

The judges, Edith Brown Clement, Andrew Oldham and Cory Wilson, all Republican appointees, also questioned whether the DOE had the authority to pursue water regulations for many appliances in the first place.

They wrote that in 1992, “Congress added ‘water use’ to DOE’s statutory mandate — but only as to showerheads, faucets, water closets, and urinals” suggesting that, “Congress never gave DOE power to regulate water use by other products like dishwashers or laundry appliances.”

The Biden administration rule in question repealed Trump-era actions that created exemptions to efficiency rules for appliances that run on shorter cycles.

While the court didn’t toss out the rule, Timothy Ballo, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, said he viewed the court’s decision as mostly negative because it could create “confusion” for standards going forward.

“The court has called into question the legality of repealing the [Trump-era] loophole,” Ballo said. “It just creates uncertainty about the status of those loopholes and whether they affect in any way the updated standards.”