U.S Pulling Back on Our Wins Over Energy Efficiency Just Went Is Going Up
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| A dishwasher at a General Electric plant in Louisville, Ky. The Energy Department has moved to repeal 17 standards for dishwashers, washing machines, kitchen appliances and more. Credit...Michael Hickey/Getty Images |
Reporting from Washington
New York Times
The Trump administration is dismantling a wide array of federal energy-efficiency programs at the same time that war in Iran is raising oil prices, climate change is fueling record heat that is driving up demand for air conditioning and new data centers are straining America’s electricity supply.
“The turn away from efficiency has been oddly timed,” said Christine Egan, executive director of the Collaborative Labeling and Appliance Standards Program, a nonprofit group that works on efficiency policies worldwide. “Energy prices are going up, demand is going up, and you’d think we would want our products to be as efficient as possible.”
The result is that consumers could end up using more electricity and burning more gas when electricity costs are rising faster than inflation and gasoline is averaging $4 a gallon. While more efficient cars or appliances can be more expensive, consumers often save money over time because they use less energy.
Since the 1970s, administrations of both parties have issued regulations to reduce the amount of fuel used by cars, buildings and appliances to alleviate energy crunches. Those efficiency standards can also help curtail the emissions that are warming the planet.
President Trump has said the country faces an energy emergency and doesn’t have enough power to meet its growing needs, including for data centers for artificial intelligence. But administration officials say the answer is to generate more electricity and use more oil, gas, coal and nuclear power.
“The administration’s focus is on expanding affordable, reliable and secure energy,” said Ben Dietderich, an Energy Department spokesman.
Mr. Trump has been a longtime critic of energy conservation rules, saying they limit consumer choice and ruin appliances. Over the past year, the administration has proposed rescinding requirements that manufacturers make washing machines and other appliances that use less electricity and water. The government has relaxed fuel-economy rules for new cars and trucks and criticized state building codes meant to curb energy use. Mr. Trump’s domestic policy bill last year phased out tax breaks for homeowners who upgraded insulation or bought more efficient water heaters.
This month, the Energy Department took matters a step further and proposed a rule that could make it harder for future administrations to tighten appliance efficiency standards.
“Americans should be free from radical Green New Scam mandates to choose the appliances they want in their homes,” said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman. “These unpopular mandates disrupted consumer choice and raised costs on air conditioning units, gas stoves, washing and drying machines, water heaters, refrigerators, and other products American families and businesses rely on every day.”
Some states, like Maryland and Arizona, have rolled back efficiency programs that are funded by utility customers, seeking to cut near-term costs. Democrats in Massachusetts are debating the future of their own program.
Overall, the U.S. economy has been getting more energy efficient each year, but that progress slowed significantly in 2025, according to the International Energy Agency.
One recent study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that current appliance efficiency standards have lowered U.S. energy use 6.5 percent and saved the average household $576 per year, compared to a world with no standards.
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| Power lines are seen in the background as a person runs near nightfall. |
U.S. electricity use largely stayed flat in the 2010s, in part because of efficiency improvements in lightbulbs and other appliances.Credit...Carlos Barria/Reuters
The federal government started promoting energy efficiency in the 1970s, after an oil embargo by Arab states triggered gasoline shortages and price spikes.
President Richard Nixon urged Americans to turn down their thermostats, and Congress later created the Energy Department, which began requiring manufacturers to make household appliances that use less energy. Under a 1987 law signed by President Ronald Reagan, the agency is supposed to review those standards every six years and tighten them as needed.
“For a long time, energy efficiency was the most bipartisan energy source we had,” said Dan Reicher, who served as assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy during the Clinton administration.
Those regulations transformed the U.S. economy. A typical refrigerator today uses about one-third of the electricity as a model from the 1970s. By one estimate, stricter fuel-economy standards for cars have saved Americans about $5 trillion in gasoline costs. During the 2010s, U.S. electricity use largely stayed flat, in part because of efficiency improvements in lightbulbs and other appliances.
America Depends Less on Oil Than Ever
Many Republicans opposed the lightbulb efficiency standards that took effect during the Obama administration, which began phasing out incandescent bulbs in favor of compact fluorescents and, later, L.E.D.s. When the Biden administration issued new standards for gas furnaces and water heaters, the gas industry argued that the rules would ban some less expensive gas appliances.
Some appliance makers say they are hitting a point of diminishing returns — that new refrigerators or dryers can only get so much more efficient. And some conservative groups have complained that stricter rules lead to dishwashers or washing machines that take longer to clean or don’t work as well — a claim disputed by manufacturers.
Few opponents have been as vocal as Mr. Trump, who made opposing efficiency rules a campaign theme.
“Now they want to take away your gas stoves,” he said at a 2023 event. “They want to take away your washing machines and your dryers. They don’t want to give you any water for the washing machine.”
The United States is less vulnerable to energy price spikes than it was in the 1970s, thanks both to the success of past efficiency programs and a newfound abundance of cheap domestic oil and gas. That, some administration allies have argued, makes conservation less urgent.
Last year, Mr. Trump issued several orders to roll back efficiency standards for everything from showers to lightbulbs.
The Energy Department quickly moved to repeal 17 standards for dishwashers, washing machines, kitchen appliances and more. (Those rollbacks have yet to be finalized.) The agency also criticized the latest voluntary international building codes that states can choose to adopt, arguing that many rules to reduce home energy use take too long to pay for themselves and push consumers away from using gas-burning appliances.
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| An Energy Star label on a stainless steel washing machine. |
Last year, when the Trump administration tried to eliminate the popular Energy Star program, industry groups allied to oppose the move.Credit...Joe Raedle/Getty Images
More recently, the Energy Department proposed a “process rule” that would set up hurdles for future efficiency standards. Under existing law, the agency is supposed to regularly review efficiency rules for more than 60 commercial and household appliances and determine whether tightening those standards would be technologically and economically justified. The Trump administration is proposing higher thresholds for updates.
While Democrats have opposed many efficiency rollbacks, they have supported some. In January, 57 House Democrats voted with Republicans on a bill to cancel Biden-era efficiency standards for mobile homes, which hadn’t been updated in decades. Supporters estimated that those rules, which would have required better insulation and other changes, would lower average energy bills by $400 per year, but some lawmakers said they would have worsened housing shortages by increasing construction costs
Industry groups have had mixed responses to many rollbacks. Some appliance manufacturers oppose the repeal of finalized regulations because companies had already been planning for them. Others would prefer to return to a bipartisan consensus over energy efficiency rather than major shifts from administration to administration.
“We hate the swings,” said Francis Dietz, vice president of public affairs at the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, a trade group. “It’s not always fun to update equipment to meet new standards, but it’s always better when we can plan according to a schedule.”
Last year, when the Trump administration tried to eliminate Energy Star, a popular efficiency certification program at the Environmental Protection Agency for appliances and buildings, dozens of industry groups rallied to oppose the move, saying energy efficient appliances saved American households $40 billion a year. The program is now being transferred to the Energy Department.
The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, which represents 150 manufacturers, wants Congress to alter federal efficiency laws because any administration changes could be reversed. This year, the Republican-controlled House passed legislation that would make future updates less frequent, but that bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate.
“We have been supportive of appliance efficiency standards, which have resulted in tremendous gains,” said Jill Notini, a spokeswoman for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. “But we’re 40 years in, and we are getting to the point with some products where there’s not much more energy or water you can really remove.”
Proponents of efficiency have been making the case that there is still plenty of untapped potential. Even if the latest refrigerators are unlikely to get drastically more efficient anytime soon, new technologies are always emerging that can squeeze out additional savings.
A report issued last week by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit group, estimated that the United States could avoid the need to build hundreds of costly power plants and cut planet-warming emissions by up to one-third by taking ambitious measures to reduce energy waste, including stricter standards for buildings and vehicles and policies that shift electricity demand away from peak hours.
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