President Donald Trump has a lot of problems in the bathroom, and he isn’t shy about sharing them. Faucets? “You want to wash your hands. You turn on the water and it goes drip, drip. The soap, you can’t get it off your hand.” Toilets? “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once.” Showers? “I have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes till [my hair] gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.” Trump may be the most powerful man in the world, but his every visit to the loo is apparently an exercise in disappointment and frustration.
No longer will showerheads be weak and worthless.
So in between attacking America’s universities and sending people to be tortured in a Salvadoran prison, Trump has addressed this urgent bathroom crisis with bold action. He signed an executive order last week “to end the Obama-Biden war on water pressure and make America’s showers great again,” with this inspiring promise: “No longer will showerheads be weak and worthless.”In this Passover season, Americans can rejoice, because, like the Jews arriving in the Promised Land after wandering the Sinai for 40 years, we will at last be delivered from our exile in the parched low-flow desert.
Trump is right about one thing: There were laws and regulations passed under previous administrations concerning the amount of water used by showers and toilets. Where he goes wrong is his believing this has made things worse. To the contrary, these kinds of regulations have spurred private-sector innovation and left consumers, and the country, much better off.
Consider the toilet. Back in 1992, President George H.W. Bush signed a law that, in addition to mandating that most faucets flow at less than 2.2 gallons per minute, mandated that toilets use just 1.6 gallons of water per flush. That was a reduction from the 3.5 gallons that most toilets used then. For a time, manufacturers simply reduced the amount of water in toilets but didn’t alter their basic design, which did indeed make them work poorly. This period three decades ago appears to be where the president’s memory is stuck.Faced with dissatisfaction from consumers, the manufacturers updated their designs, and today’s toilets not only use less water (some less than 1 gallon per flush), but they also work better than the old water-hungry ones did. If you replaced an old toilet in the last few years, you were probably amazed at how much more effectively even modestly priced modern toilets work, even as they use less water.
The result of the law was better toilets, happier consumers and significantly less water used — a win for everyone. It’s exactly what government regulation of consumer products is supposed to accomplish.
By the time it took effect under President Barack Obama, Republicans were incandescent with rage.
Or think of another recent home product about which we had a political conflict: incandescent lights. Here, too, the transition away from the old design began with a president named Bush. In 2007, George W. Bush signed a law setting new standards for light bulb efficiency; by the time it took effect under President Barack Obama, Republicans were incandescent with rage over this supposed assault on our freedom. Rep. Michele Bachmann — the Marjorie Taylor Greene of her day — made preserving inefficient incandescents her personal crusade, claiming that Democrats and “globalists” were robbing us of our God-given light bulb liberty. Running for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, she vowed that “President Bachmann will allow you to buy any light bulb you want.” And what happened? We transitioned fairly quickly from incandescents to compact fluorescents (one day you’ll tell your grandkids about those funny spiral bulbs) and then to the now-ubiquitous LEDs. Prices steadily dropped, and today there are more choices on the market than anyone could need; the “LED bulbs” section of the Home Depot website lists 2,459 products.
Here, too, Trump is living in the past: In his first term he complained that LED lighting “doesn’t make you look as good,” and “being a vain person that’s very important to me.” But in fact, this was another case study in successful regulation: The government set a rule, the market responded, and now we’re all better off. We use less electricity for lighting, which saves us all money and reduces climate emissions from generating power. Today’s bulbs are affordable and perform well, and there are more to choose from than ever before.As for the showerheads that give Trump so much trouble, those, too, have come a long way; there are innumerable ones on the market that use less water but provide the strong pressure the president says he yearns for. I recently bought a $17 showerhead that could strip the paint off a car fender. The Environmental Protection Agency even has a labeling program called WaterSense that can help you find efficient, high-performing models.
In his first term he complained that LED lighting “doesn’t make you look as good,” and “being a vain person that’s very important to me.”
It’s fine to be skeptical of government regulation of consumer products; there will be times when those regulations fail to achieve the goals that drove them or produce unintended consequences. But the story told by the rules for toilets, showers and light bulbs is one of successful cooperation between the government and industry that resulted in gains for both consumers and the planet. So if President Trump is still tormented by his bathroom, his exasperated cries echoing through the halls of Mar-a-Lago, perhaps he should have his staff update the fixtures. He’ll be glad he did.