Biden Suffers Major Court Defeat in His War Against Appliances
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey: “Federal bureaucrats can’t just tell you what kind of appliances you have to use.”
We have regularly covered Biden’s seemingly endless war on America’s appliances.
So far, the Biden administration eco-activists at the Energy Department have come after our:
There were also attacks on gas stoves, which led to the House of Representatives passing legislation to block the Department of Energy from implementing tough new energy conservation rules on gas stoves. It was a rare bipartisan move that more than two dozen Democrats supported.
And who could forget the moment Biden’s “climate activism advisor” Gina McCarthy chortled over 100 new rules the administration planned to impose on appliances.
Biden climate advisor Gina McCarthy: "We're actually going to do 100 rules this year alone on appliances."
The airlines are "gonna be out of here" if they don’t follow Biden’s Green New Deal-style rules. pic.twitter.com/AKI7InJDBw
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 4, 2022
However, Americans who find their appliances useful now have the last laugh.
The Biden administration must revisit actions to toss Trump-era efficiency rules that created new appliance categories for shorter-duration dishwashers and washing machines, a federal appeals court ruled.
Repeal efforts by the Energy Department in 2022 were arbitrary and capricious, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in an opinion published late Monday. The court sided with the petitioners, a group of 11 states led by Louisiana, in finding the department didn’t properly weigh alternatives from supporters of the Trump administration’s rules.
The ruling creates uncertainty for how the Energy Department will finalize new standards for the two appliances this year, said Timothy Ballo, senior attorney with Earthjustice. Last September, efficiency advocates joined manufacturers to jointly recommend energy and water efficiency standards for six product categories, including washing machines and dishwashers.
The high-handed approach of the Department of Energy (DOE) toward adopting regulations prompted the legal review. Specifically, how did the entity that covered energy issues have purview over water?
According to the ruling, the DOE changed regulations regarding dishwashers and washing machines by revoking a 2020 rule excluding short-cycle appliances from existing requirements, which prompted a legal review.
“There is no fourth branch of government sanctioned in the United States Constitution,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, among those to bring the review, wrote following the court ruling. “Federal bureaucrats can’t just tell you what kind of appliances you have to use.”
…In the judgment, Oldham said that Congress appeared not to have given the DOE the authority to regulate water usage in appliances that also used energy—instead giving it authority to regulate energy usage, as well as water usage in appliances that do not require energy, such as faucets and showerheads.
The court’s opinion was brutal on the DOE.
The court’s opinion also points out that there is “ample evidence” to support that DOE’s dishwasher standards actually accomplish the opposite of their intent, stating that “they make Americans use more energy and more water for the simple reason that purportedly ‘energy efficient’ appliances do not work.”
Beyond clothes washers and dishwashers, the Biden DOE has also sought to impose energy efficiency regulations for items like water heaters, furnaces and pool pump motors. The administration has also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on helping state and municipal governments pursue building codes
“In this opinion, the court has forced DOE to follow the law and even noted that one of the positions DOE took in this suit ‘borders on frivolous.’ This decision allows manufacturers to build better dishwashers, not be encumbered by counterproductive federal regulations,” Devin Watkins, an attorney for CEI, said of the opinion.
Chalk up another war the Biden administration has lost.
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Comments
I’d rather not continue relying on courts to save us from the Professional Bureaucracy
I pray daily to the Good Lord to save us from Joe Biden and his evil Administration.
Meant to hit reply, oops on down vote. I di a good deed last week, bought a new gas range.
We all have that T shirt.. I own 4 propane fireplaces, two gas ranges, 2 giant garage heaters…. off the top of my head… Those eejits can pound sand.
I have many propane heaters, construction units and my building have both furnaces and many have 30 KBTU catalytic heaters, those are for when there are power outages I don’t have to run a generator all night. I also have started buying Chinese diesel heaters for use in my cargo trailers. In addition to that, they are a grate backup for home use, in tat diesel is easy to transport and has a long storage life. With civil unrest. LP might be hard to get, while diesel is common.
If we get a favorable ruling this term from a pair of cases,
Looper Bright Enterprises V Raimundo and Relentless V Dept of Commerce we see the end of the judicial basis for much of the current regulatory/administrative State; the Chevron doctrine. This doctrine essentially grants ‘deference’ to agency rulemaking decisions that, IMO, border on absurd and certainly beyond what Congress intended.
Ian Millhouser at Vox has a histrionic piece out flailing around in fear that SCOTUS will rule that Executive Agencies do not have power make decisions about things which Congress did not specifically grant authority. He and the rest of the pro big govt types should be fearful b/c if SCOTUS does then the power of agencies is drastically curtailed. Set for oral arguments on 17 Jan.
That’s a case I will be watching. Thanks for the heads-up on this.
It’s a big deal. There’s a fair amount of fed-level legal movement over recent years that amounts to: “You want it, pass a law.”
The Progressive Project targets ever-developing orchestration of the livestock by a superior intelligentsia who know better. Republican self-government, the apparatus is there to implement stuff we’d rather not personally bother with. Republican self-government wants agencies doing administration to help the people do what they want. The Progressive Project wants ministries, mandating the people do what their betters direct.
Administration by permanent expert bureaucracy is one of Pres Wilson’s explicit goals. Part of his “fundamental transformation” of how the country works, one might say. They’ve been at it, methodically for about a century.
Here’s the thing. They aren’t mandating what’s better for you, but what they think is better. And if you’re not in the room deciding what to do, well, you’re in the ant farm.
From scope of govt PoV, I had great fun after the repeal of “Roe” answering: “What do you think?” I’m old, white, male, worked in industry, grew up rural, and dress mostly blue-collar. Lots of people assume my politics, n look to box me in, or pick a fight.
What did I think about Roe v Wade overturned?
“I’m pretty much with The Notorious RBG on this one: she said it was bad law.”
Such pretty explosions. When they occasionally let me talk again…
“Roughly, that decision inferred an unstated right to privacy in the US Constitution, and from that a right to bodily autonomy. So abortion if you want — your body, your choice.”
“I. myself, would love an explicit right to privacy in the US Constitution, beyond the 1st 4th n 5th amendments. If we mean it, say it.”
“And I’m OK with bodily autonomy deriving from that. They won’t get anywhere near that because a whole pile of mandates, ministries, and legislation they want would fall into the “none of your business” pile. Way better to have the Cheshire Right, blinking in and out when it’s needed to justify some policy they want or block one they don’t.”
Like agencies and departments I think a lot of what the courts end up doing maybe ought to be pulled back a bit. How about we empower them to ask for direction vs. declaring the answers themselves?
border on absurd and certainly beyond what Congress intended
I will only disagree on “what Congress intended” in the sense that Congress – in passing vague laws empowering these agencies – intended to pass on all of the responsibility and power for rulemaking. They don’t want to do the hard work (and risky, politically) of actually passing laws that specify exactly what should be banned or restricted. They would much prefer to posture and bloviate and pass laws that are general enough that the bureaucracy can just go with it, however far they think best.
Yeah that’s absolutely true about Congress delegating X authority to an agency in order to set up the situation of ‘gee whiz these agencies did it not us, blame them and send us campaign $ so we can elect more members and maybe we can reform it. (Which is a crock b/c under the Congressional Review Act already do it if they wanted to muster the political will to do so they don’t necessarily need to do a heavy lift).
What the agencies are doing now is different. They are taking the explicit and even implied authority granted over X and then saying X+. The + which Congress didn’t grant authority for is the issue here not delegation more broadly. If we really want a return to limited govt then get rid of most rule making staff at agencies and require Congress to mark up, debate and pass legislation instead of allowing rule/regulations generated from Executive agencies.
>>> Chalk up another war the Biden administration has lost.
Unfortunately this is probably too optimistic. This particular battle may have been won, for now, but those who seek to rule us are relentless. They will never give up. The war is ongoing.
The fact the DOE has authority to govern any end use of energy is mind boggling. It is absurd.
We are at a point where every single Federal and most State entities feel they can regulate anything and everything….city zoning boards now regulate refrigerators …..the DMV voting registration…..etc
Because all government agencies are nothing more than money-laundering outfits. The rule-making is just an added bonus for the sociopaths staffing them.
in finding the department didn’t properly weigh alternatives
When it should have found that it really didn’t have any business doing this under the Constitution.
When will appliance manufacturers just tell the “federal” government to go away and build what their customers want?
As pleased as I am with the result, the Court’s opinion (well and often amusingly written) actually was based on the DOE’s failure to follow the procedures of the Administrative Procedure Act. Furthermore, under the opinion, if Trump were to enter a Day One executive order overturning Biden’s gas stove and water heater rules, it would be overturned if someone appealed.
The fundamental issue is the delegation of Congressional law making powers to the executive branch. To me, that is flat out unconstitutional. A proper procedure would be for an executive agency to go to Congress to get approval (with the President’s signature) for any rule it might propose. For those who say this places too much of a burden on Congress, I would say: maybe Congress will rethink its creation of so many executive agencies making so many rules. If Congress can’t be burdened by having to approve so many rules, think of we, the people who are burdened by having to follow them.
Watch the video clip of this idiotic Dhimmi-crat twit and apparatchik, McCarthy, speaking at Tufts. Her twenty-some-odd seconds of bloviating perfectly encapsulates the manifest stupidity, arrogance and destructiveness of these “green” tyrants.
There’s not even a scintilla of intelligence, rationality or temperance in her remarks — it’s all obnoxious, bullying and fascistic dogma and fanaticism.
“There is no fourth branch of government sanctioned in the United States Constitution,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, among those to bring the review, wrote following the court ruling. “Federal bureaucrats can’t just tell you what kind of appliances you have to use.”
Of course, neither can the first branch. No part of the constitution delegates this power.
Obviously they can, otherwise I wouldn’t have a crap clothes washer.
Just wait until they get the power to fight global warming, they will be able to control every aspect of our lives.
They don’t care about the environment, its just a way for them to gain power.
Time to have Congress to review and approve every regulation over 2 years.
Most of the time, feds don’t directly tell “us” anything. They do tell industry directly, what they can and cannot manufacture, market, sell, or install. Via commerce and all the “protectiin” agencies.Doing so harms our rights..
We are literally being “protected” to death.
Nowhere was this situatuon contemplated in the founding, its literally government appropriating (stealing) powers that were not given to them.
Probably 90% or more of the alphabet agencies need to be disbanded, and, by law, all former employees denied access to any positions within the federal government for the next 5, if not 10, years. They should also be barred from lobbying for the same period.
“The ruling creates uncertainty for how the Energy Department will finalize new standards for the two appliances this year, said Timothy Ballo, senior attorney with Earthjustice.”
Well, at least they’re up front about their agenda. Nothing about how to help people or even the planet. Just “how will the authoritah make new rules now?”
Let’s recall that The Imaginary Stove Rules — you know, the ones that don’t exist, but are landing on you n your good sear anyway — came from a piece of push “research” pushed (<– see what I did there?) to a couple Something Must Be Done CongressCritters, who wrote the agency a letter: "Something Must Be Done!"
Stoves work, and people like them. We can't have that. These activists have become the new scowling puritans: deeply disturbed at the possibility someone, somewhere is having fun.