Environment and Climate News Podcast | Biden Wants to Ban Your Favorite Appliances (Guest: Ben Lieberman)

In its obsessive pursuit of carbon dioxide emission reductions without regard to costs or freedom of choice, the Biden administration has conducted a regulatory assault on appliances, limiting consumers choice of appliances in a doomed attempt to control future weather. CEI Senior Fellow Ben Lieberman discusses how the energy efficiency mandates that the Biden administration is applying to a larger than ever range of appliances and products are limiting consumers freedom of choice, increasing costs, and forcing the sale of products that don't have features that consumers want and that don't work as well and the products they are replacing.

Watch a Heartland Institute video on this topic at the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maJTNrkYWgU

Creators & Guests

Host

H. Sterling Burnett

H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., hosts The Heartland Institute’s Environment and Climate News podcast. Burnett also is the director of Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, is the editor of Heartland's Climate Change Weekly email, and oversees the production of the monthly newspaper Environment & Climate News. Prior to joining The Heartland Institute in 2014, Burnett worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, ending his tenure there as senior fellow in charge of environmental policy. He has held various positions in professional and public policy organizations within the field. Burnett is a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Task Force in the Texas Comptroller’s e-Texas commission, served as chairman of the board for the Dallas Woods and Water Conservation Club, is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, works as an academic advisor for Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, is an advisory board member to the Cornwall Alliance, and is an advisor for the Energy, Natural Resources and Agricultural Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council.

What is Environment and Climate News Podcast ?

The Heartland Institute podcast featuring scientists, authors, and policy experts who take the non-alarmist, climate-realist position on environment and energy policy.

0:00
This is the Heartland Daily Podcast.

0:09
Hello and welcome to the Heartland Too Daily Podcast.

0:12
I'm Sterling Burnett, Director of the Arthur B Robinson Center on Climate and environmental Policy and managing editor of Environment and climate news.

0:19
This podcast represents a milestone for me.

0:22
My four hundreds and it is on an important topic.

0:25
Important that is if you care about your freedom as a consumer to purchase the appliances that you want with features that you prefer for the reasons that you prefer them without government saying you should place energy use and climate change above all other considerations.

0:41
I'm pleased today to have Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute as a guest today.

0:47
She has long published its annual 10,000 commandments detailing the regulatory overreach of administrative agencies.

0:53
Each year regulations are both a hidden tax and a restriction on liberty concerning appliances and various products.

1:00
President Biden has been true to his word in making the battle against climate change a centerpiece of his administration and nobody has followed this more closely and critiqued it more trenchantly than Ben Ben.

1:13
Thanks for joining us.

1:15
Well, thank you for having me.

1:16
So ben, before we jump into what products the Biden administration has singled out for new restrictions and basically banning and how it will impact consumers.

1:25
For our listeners who may not be familiar with you.

1:28
Please give us a little bit about your background and your previous work.

1:30
You know how you came to do what you're doing today?

1:33
Ok.

1:33
Well, for someone who's a critic of big government, I'm unusual in that I grew up in the Washington DC metropolitan area, so I am a swamp creature, but I, I'm one of those swamp creatures that, that, that, that's critical of the, of, of the swamp.

1:49
I look all around me and see things that the government not only shouldn't be doing but they are doing and doing very poorly and certainly appliance regulation is one of those now granted,, freedom of stoves isn't exactly in the constitution, but you can read it in there.

2:05
The government should not be micromanaging our lives to this extent.

2:09
And that's why I've spent a fair amount of time pushing back against all these anti consumer appliance regulations.

2:17
Well, you know, you, you say it's not exactly the constitution III I guess I would argue in a sense it is stoves are never mentioned.

2:25
But guess that that's the point.

2:28
The constitution specifically delegated specific powers to the federal government and nowhere in there is deciding what you cook on or how you heat your home.

2:38
That wasn't a power delegated to them that was left to the people in the States they're in.

2:43
So,, I've always been suspicious of this.

2:46
, so ben at the end of 2023 the Biden administration added four new products or appliances to its climate hit list.

2:57
But in truth, in a flurry of appliance and energy and water standards, the Biden administration has undertaken arguably the most comprehensive unprecedented assault on consumer choice and appliance availability of any administration previously.

3:13
I mean, in three short years, it's going after appliance after appliance, after appliance and, and, product after product after product, what appliances has it placed new restrictions on over the past year and the four at the end of the year?

3:27
Well, at this point, it's easier to list the appliances that the Biden administration hasn't targeted televisions are off the hook.

3:34
So let's let's be grateful for that.

3:37
But just about anything else that plugs in or fires up around the house is subject to these regulations.

3:43
Most recently finalized was one for furnaces.

3:46
That could be a big problem for number of homeowners, in the pipeline.

3:52
Soon to be finalized are regulations for air conditioners.

3:55
, ceiling fans, water heaters, dishwashers,, washing machines.

4:02
I know I'm leaving out a few, I think, I think they recently did refrigerators, they've done,,, they did other fans like just regular fans that you put around your home a lot in the at the end of the year, they never regulated that before.

4:15
, I mean, the, the, they're even taking on appliances and products that have never, that the federal government has never thought to regulate before.

4:24
But the, the Biden administration says, hey, we've got the power and we're going to do it.

4:29
, legally what allows presidential agencies to dictate energy and water standards.

4:36
There's also water use standards.

4:38
Some of them like the washing machines and the dishwashers.

4:41
And from a poly per policy perspective, why does it claim the new stricter standards are justified?

4:47
In other words, what benefits do they claim will result?

4:50
And I should add stoves, which is the most controversial of, of the, of them all cars, cars is another one.

4:57
You know, if you want to talk, if you, they're not really appliances but they're, they're, they're constantly rationing up restrictions on cars.

5:03
It's, it's basically anything that uses energy.

5:06
The Biden administration wants to tell you, you have to use less energy using it.

5:11
Well, unfortunately, and to your question, Congress did give a great deal of authority to the Department of Energy as well as other agencies to set efficiency standards for appliances.

5:23
In the case of other agencies like EPA to, to regulate them for various environmental reasons.

5:29
It was too much of a, of a, of a handover of authority.

5:32
But even so I would argue the agencies have overstepped their, their authority.

5:38
In the case of efficiency standards, there are provisions in the law that forbid the agency from setting standards that actually harm consumers quite, quite sensibly.

5:48
But,, quite arguably the, the, the latest round of standards does make consumers, most consumers worse off.

5:56
And I would argue they,, put,, the climate agenda ahead of the best interests of homeowners.

6:03
So, w what were a couple of the laws that they passed?

6:06
I mean, so, so if people were gonna complain about a law, what, what, what's the, what's the actual law?

6:11
The energy policy and conservation Act of 1975 and talk about the gift that keeps on giving this, this law not only had the appliance efficiency standards in it, it also had cafe standards, the corporate average fuel economy standards that you mentioned that,, that, that, that also, limit choices for,, for, for car owners and are now being used to push, the market towards, electric vehicles.

6:39
So,, that's the statute where it all began.

6:42
It's been amended many times.

6:45
It's something that,, in the past Democrats and Republicans have agreed upon the good news is that I think Congress is beginning to wake up.

6:55
And I mentioned, for example, that for stove regulations, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would preemptively stop any, stove regulations and it was a bipartisan bill, 29 House Democrats joined every Republican in opposing the bill.

7:12
So Congress is beginning to, to wake up, it's still gonna be tough to undo,,, these,, these, these regulations.

7:20
Certainly the, the, the president would have to sign any, a, a, any law repealing regulations.

7:26
And, and this president has shown no inclination to,, oppose his own regulators and admit that maybe his regulators went too far.

7:35
But,, but at least there, there, there is some push back,, in Congress, the, the, the ultimate,,,,, thing to do of course, would be to repeal this authority entirely.

7:47
The government has no business micromanaging our appliances choices and, and ought to get out of that business entirely.

7:53
Yeah.

7:54
I mean, you know, some of the things they've done in the past,, you can't get light bulbs that many people like anymore.

8:00
Under these standards, your, your toilet,, they went from, you know, one time you had these big five gallon toilets and they said, oh, no, no, no, we gotta go to, to lower gallon and of course, then you have to flush it multiple times because they get clogged up easier.

8:13
They don't, they don't work as well.

8:15
And I think that that's, that's typical is they have pie in the sky, promises of how much savings it will be over time.

8:24
So, it's gonna save you money over time.

8:27
It's gonna cost you more upfront.

8:29
But over time you'll save money.

8:31
And of course, in this case, they say, and over time it will reduce emissions by X amount.

8:36
, often those savings never materialize the products break.

8:41
They don't work as well.

8:42
They use more energy than promised.

8:44
People don't use them in the way that's most efficient.

8:48
But even if efficiency, we're the most important thing for a person, you know,, fuel,, use energy use were the most important thing for, couldn't consumers have purchased energy efficient appliances that they wanted to already without the standards?

9:03
I mean, there, there, there's a variety of appliances out there and they all tell you, oh, this is how much energy it uses.

9:09
If that's what you care about, couldn't they already choose that?

9:11
And, and, and what will be the ultimate result in terms of costs and choice?

9:16
How will the poor and middle class be depart impacted by these rules?

9:21
There's no downside to not regulating the ultra efficient appliances.

9:26
The ones that are approved by environmentalists, they're gonna be on the market anyway.

9:30
Manufacturers have shown they will cater to that segment of the market.

9:35
The only thing standards do is push that choice on everyone whether it makes sense for them or, and we know from the track record that one size does not fit all.

9:44
Some of these standards do not make sense for many homeowners depending on your individualized circumstances.

9:51
, you know, every home is different, every homeowner is different.

9:54
We all know an individualized circumstances and preferences better than all the know it all in Washington DC.

10:01
So much better to have as wide a variety as possible.

10:05
And there's plenty of information for consumers to make informed choices.

10:09
If you want the most efficient model on the market.

10:12
There's plenty of ways to find out about it, including government labels.

10:15
There's the Energy Star program that,, that, that affixes the energy star label to the most efficient appliance in each, in each category, there's also federal trade commission energy labels.

10:27
If you've ever noticed when you,, when you shop for, for, for, for appliances and of course, the, the internet has, has a great deal more information if that's what you want.

10:36
But one of the things we've learned is that,, sometimes these standards will raise the upfront cost more than you're likely to earn back in the form of energy or water savings.

10:48
And even worse, these,, these standards can harm product performance saving a little bit of energy doesn't really make a lot of sense if the damn thing doesn't work as well as it did.

10:58
And we see this, for example, with dishwashers where as a direct result of regulations, it now takes a lot longer to do a load of dishes.

11:06
Apparently, efficiency with regard to people's time is not the kind of efficiency that they, that, that, that, that, that the regulators care about, but plenty of people would pay a little bit more in energy and water bills,, for,, a dishwasher that could get the job done in an hour, which is what they used to be able to do.

11:25
Yeah.

11:25
Yeah.

11:26
My, my, my newest one takes three hours to do what it took an hour for the last one to do.

11:30
, and like you say, and, and often, you know, to be fair, the dishes don't come out as clean, the, the, the new,, washing machines, I don't think, to some extent do as good a job.

11:44
They got rid of the agitators.

11:45
, in many of these new washing machines, they cost more, they're less effective, although they may save some energy before we get to the rest of this podcast, I wanted to let you know about two fantastic live podcasts.

12:01
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12:03
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12:10
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12:26
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12:29
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12:41
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12:48
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12:55
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13:09
Oh, yeah, we're also on rumble.

13:11
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13:13
It's just like with auto automobiles.

13:16
You know, people can choose the most efficient,, either internal combustion engine or electric or hybrid car they want there.

13:24
There's lots of models out there, you know, dozens and dozens of models out there.

13:28
Yet they continue to choose the Ford F 150 and,, and, and bigger vehicles that are more comfortable that can haul more people comfortably that can get up to speed on highways.

13:41
In short, they choose products for a lot of reasons, fuel or energy cost,, may be one or it may not be and it's none of the government's business if it's not.

13:54
Yeah, people,, people,, their, their only obligation is to pay their energy bills and beyond that they, they, they pe people ought to make decisions for themselves.

14:03
Now, that said consumers have shown that they, they will take energy use into account when making their their appliance decisions.

14:12
But they do so in a rational way, they, they, they, they don't go to extremes about it.

14:16
And so for example, appliances that cost more upfront, then you, you're likely to, to say that won't happen absent these these one size fits all arbitrary government regulations also, you know, appliances that, that, that, that lose valued features that won't happen absent these, these government regulations.

14:38
So these, these arbitrary standards cause more problems than they than they solve and, and, and even if they, they do save on energy, that's not worth it when compared to the loss of consumer freedoms, that's, I think the key point, you know, but you talk about, look, celebrity chefs are always gonna be able to get their gas stoves.

15:02
They're not gonna ban the most expensive gas stoves.

15:06
But average folks can't afford the most expensive gas stoves and so they'll be forced into electric which won't, which won't do, in my opinion, don't do the job as well.

15:18
Or maybe convection, I know, but those aren't cheap in the end.

15:22
What it may do is end up keeping less efficient appliances on, on, you know, working for a longer period of time which your gas stove goes broke, you know, you get your, your old gas stove gets broken.

15:34
You can't replace it with a comparable gas stove.

15:36
So, what you do is you call the repairman and you keep it limping along rather than replacing it with a newer gas stove that might be a little bit more efficient, but it's not the highest end that can still be sold.

15:47
You know, it's like it and it's certainly not the electric stove you'd have to replace yours with.

15:51
, that's what people are doing with cars.

15:53
Right.

15:54
You know, it's like they, they just keep cars on the road longer and longer,, keeping them working because cars are becoming more expensive, so expensive with these new standards.

16:03
That's true.

16:03
And we, we have seen that with, with vehicle life times, they're getting longer and longer each and every year.

16:09
, people,,, they like the features in vehicles that,, that, that are, that they, they currently have, they're not sure when it comes to buying new, whether they can get those same features at the, at, at a, at a price they, they can't afford.

16:24
So there is a push towards keeping the,, the old ones I suspect and I know anecdotally that's happening with appliances.

16:32
I haven't seen the numbers on it but,, iii, I know that a lot of folks, they get rid of an old appliance.

16:38
They think the new one's gonna be better because it's new and then they're disappointed to find out that it's not.

16:44
And it's like, well, can I go back to the junkyard and find my, you know, find my old appliance.

16:48
, and, and,, yeah, it, it, it, it is unfortunate,, that way and one wonders, you know, just as used car markets are becoming more, more robust and, and, and used cars are, are going up in price for that reason.

17:02
I wonder, are we going to reach a point where there's going to be a much more robust used appliance market where you can get the older models that have all the features, that you want.

17:12
Of course, the, the caveat there is that the older the model, the harder it is to, to get the replacement parts.

17:20
Well, you know, the Maytag repairman may not be so lonely for very much longer.

17:25
If, if, if Biden has his way and, you know, we already know that there for some products, there is a thriving black market in them.

17:32
I mean, when the toilet standards people were going and I, and I know people who still do, they're going into really old trailers that have been abandoned or have been trashed and pulling out the old fixtures and, and, and, and installing them in homes,, as replacements because they want the five gallon that works.

17:50
, they, they're ripping out the old,,, showerheads because they have more water coming out, flowing out water pressure.

18:01
rather than the government mandated, it could only put out this much water per minute.

18:07
, like you said, as long as they're willing to pay the costs for their water bill or their electric bill, it should be their business, not the government's.

18:16
Absolutely, you mentioned washing machines.

18:18
That's, that's, that's interesting.

18:20
One as well.

18:21
That's one of those appliances like dishwashers.

18:23
They are literally, the Biden administration is on the fifth round of successively tighter standards and past standards have already caused problems and you can go online and, and see,, homeowners who've learned how to dump a bucket of water into their washing machine in the middle of the cycle to get it to work a little better.

18:41
You can also find out how to guide on how to rejigger your washing machine.

18:46
So it uses more water than it's designed to to use.

18:49
So there are these workarounds, but it's just crazy that consumers have to do these kinds of things in order to get what they want.

18:57
They shouldn't have the government have to ask the government to leave not to have to go down to the river and wash their clothes with a stone.

19:05
So in the past, many of these government mandate appliance fixes have produced, have not produced the, the savings promised or delivered the quality results of older appliances.

19:14
Isn't that true?

19:15
And could you discuss a few examples in particular?

19:17
I've already mentioned a couple, but,, I think that the, the, the clearest one, you mentioned toilets which, you know, didn't, didn't flush as well and people were flushing twice.

19:29
So it undercuts the savings.

19:31
, that's true of dishwashers where,, not only does it take a lot longer to do a load of dishes, more like two hours or more, rather than the one hour.

19:40
But they don't,, clean as well.

19:42
And what you hear is that people more frequently are rinsing their dishes before they put them into the dishwasher or after they take them out of the dishwasher or they have to towel dry them after they're done because they don't,, the, the, the, the drying of that the dishwasher does isn't,, isn't complete.

19:59
So before you know, it, you're wasting water and energy,, and time because of these new appliances and,, you're not clear at all whether you're, you're, you're actually ahead and probably you're, you're, you're not.

20:13
So,, you know, we, we, we have a number of instances, I think washing machines is, is another example of that, of, of, of appliance standards that have already caused problems.

20:25
Yet, we see this next round of even tighter provisions that are gonna make things even worse.

20:30
And as I've alluded to,, a lot of this is now justified as part of the climate agenda that,, not only will this,, save consumers money.

20:39
So says doe, but,, the agency also says that this will help save the planet, I think wrong on, on both counts.

20:46
But it does show that the climate agenda, as you mentioned is so all encompassing that.

20:52
the there, there's just a long list of regulations at least partially justified by the climate benefits.

20:59
However ridiculous, the arguments may be.

21:02
Yeah, I mean, the light bulb standard for one, you know, a lot of people don't realize it, but of course, lights old light bulb put off a lot of heat.

21:09
, well, that ends up saving them on their heating bill.

21:12
And now with the new light bulbs, your heat probably cycles on more because you're not getting as much ambient heat for your lights.

21:19
But also the new lights, they say, oh, they last so much longer.

21:22
A, they, they cost more upfront.

21:24
They, they're much more expensive upfront.

21:26
, and b well, sometimes, maybe they last longer, but sometimes not so a closet light.

21:33
Typically the savings come in some of these light bulbs if you leave them on for a certain period of time.

21:39
So you go in the closet, you turn it on.

21:41
Well, you leave it on for 15 minutes because even though that's using energy when you're not using it, that's how the light bulb works efficiently and it's going on and off, that is bad for the light bulb.

21:51
And so it turns out, well, people don't, typically, I, I don't go in my closet and just leave it on forever.

21:57
So I flick it on, grab something, flick it off for an incandescent bulb.

22:03
That's ok for a,, ac FL,, not so much.

22:08
And then when they break, you never get your savings back because now you're replacing it with AAA, more expensive bulb again.

22:14
That will break again.

22:16
You're never saving the money.

22:18
And,, it's like I said, government test these things and they said, oh, under, under ideal conditions.

22:27
Well, yeah, but conditions are rarely ideal, you know, households are not laboratories.

22:32
, and then the disposing of those bulbs,, much more.

22:39
, most people just throw them in the trash like they did the other bulbs.

22:42
But that's not what the EPA says you should do because of the,, the, the, it can chemicals that are considered toxic.

22:49
So it's,, it's crazy, Ben.

22:54
So we've got these new rounds of rules.

22:58
What can consumers do to weigh in on and fight the Biden appliance onslaught?

23:04
Well, II, I think the main thing consumers need to do is become more informed,, about the, about their appliance purchases.

23:12
Now, that's, that's already happening.

23:14
People are much better,, consumers, much better shoppers since they know their own preferences and circumstances better than these one size fits all government mandates.

23:25
But it's important to, to learn more than ever.

23:28
For example, I would suggest if, if, if somebody wants to buy a new Central Air conditioner for their house, do it relatively soon because in a few years, you may not like the choices that are, are left.

23:41
New regulations coming down.

23:43
The pike are gonna require newly built air conditioners, starting in 2025 to to use new ecofriendly but flammable refrigerants.

23:56
So not only will your new air conditioner cost more because of this regulatory requirement, but now there's there, there, there's, there, there's flammability risks associated with,, with, with some of the, the new refrigerants.

24:08
So,, because some of these appliance standards are making things worse.

24:13
You, you might wanna consider,,, hurrying up and buying a new one if you're on the market for doing so.

24:19
So these are all the kind of things that consumers need to,, to, to, to learn about on their own.

24:26
Wow.

24:26
, imagine that government rules putting people actually making people more at risk.

24:32
That'd be like, I don't know, mandating vehicles that can spontaneously combust while they're charging in your garage.

24:38
I can't imagine any government would do that.

24:40
, Ben in closing, is there only a single point you can make that you'd like our listeners to take away from this conversation today.

24:48
, what would it be?

24:50
And, and where can people learn more about your work?

24:52
And ce is work?

24:54
Well, I think that the, the main point is that no two homes are alike.

24:58
No, two homeowners are alike.

25:00
We all know our own individualized circumstances and preferences better than any experts in Washington DC.

25:07
So there's no gain from having federal regulators telling us what kind of light bulbs, what kind of washing machines, what kind of dishwashers, what kind of stoves to choose?

25:19
So, the ultimate goal should be to, to get rid of this unnecessary intrusion into our lives and to learn more about this, please check out our website at CE i.org and of course, Heartland has been following these issues as well.

25:36
So, so Heartland and ce I are, are, are, are doing a AAA lot of work on, on these issues.

25:42
Yeah, thanks for that.

25:43
We you know, look, we, we ce I and us have been allies and, and I think to be fair leaders in the fight, not just for this but so many rational environmental and energy policies both in the nation at the state and at the state level.

25:58
So thanks for that, Ben, it's been a pleasure speaking with you.

26:01
I want to thank you on be for coming on the show on behalf of myself and our listeners.

26:05
Well, thank you listeners.

26:07
Thanks for checking in us today.

26:08
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26:16
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26:22
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26:48
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26:50
Bye.