Democrats and President Joe Biden's administration have gone after dish washers, dryers, faucets, shower heads, fossil fuels, natural gas, energy independence, gas stoves, and coal or wood-fired New York City pizza shops.
Water heaters are next, according to Reuters.
The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday proposed energy efficiency standards on water heaters for the first time since the middle of former President Barack Obama's administration 13 years ago.
The proposal would require the most common-sized electric water heaters to achieve efficiency gains with heat pump technology and gas-fired water heaters to achieve efficiency gains through condensing technology.
"Leave us alone," Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., tweeted Saturday in response to Friday's news. "These products already exist in the free market. Consumers should decide whether the upfront cost of a heat-pump water heater is worth the possible long-term savings. In many cases, the monthly savings never make up for the upfront cost of the equipment."
The continued regulation — coming after the deregulatory actions of the Trump administration — was not lost on energy reporters.
"First they came for your gas stoves," Forbes contributor David Blackmon tweeted Saturday. "Then they came for your dishwashers. Next they came for your water heaters and air conditioners. Now the Biden apparatchiks are coming for your portable gas generators."
Biden's Department of Energy claims a benefit of lowering costs on Americans, with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm saying the water-heater standards regulation "builds on the unprecedented actions already taken by this administration to lower energy costs for working families."
Tankless water heater company Rinnai denounced the regulations as "technologically impossible" and would reduce consumer options, according to the New York Post.
"From the people who want showers and faucets without enough water pressure, dishwashers that don't fully clean, washers and dryers that fully wash or dry, etc., they now want water heaters that don't fully and quickly heat," Twitter user Ken Gardner said.
"All in the name of 'environmentalism' or 'climate change.'"
The Biden administration quickly unwound former President Donald Trump's Energy Department deregulation on faucets, showers, and kitchen and bath fixtures when he took office in 2021.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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