Don’t Plan Your Future Vacations Around the Cost Savings From the DOE’s New Rules

The story about the DOE’s new standards on dishwasher and electric motors has been rocketing around the conservative news media:

The Biden administration’s Department of Energy (DOE) has announced new rules cracking down on dishwashers, claiming that they will save Americans over $650 million in annual energy and water bills. However, many are skeptical of the DOE’s claims, arguing that these new rules are just another example of government overreach and unnecessary regulation.

…

“DOE expects the new standards for electric motors will save American businesses approximately $464 million per year on energy costs, while the proposed standards for dishwashers, which have not been updated in over a decade, will save American consumers approximately $168 million per year on their utility bills.”

Let’s do some simple math. $650 million in annual savings, US population is ~335 million . . .

Yup, the DOE is bragging about annual savings of $2 per person. Wowser!!

Looked at another way, a new dishwasher costs $970, on average. Average household size is 2.6. So it will take 173 years for the DOE’s amazing cost savings to justify replacement of a dishwasher.

How about water savings? The DOE says:

DOE also expects the new rule to save 240 billion gallons of water, which is equivalent to the water in 360,000 Olympic-sized pools.

That number is over a 30 year period, so they’re talking about saving 8 billion gallons of water per year. Sounds like a lot, until you find out that we currently use 322 billion gallons per day.

Ridiculous that they’d use these savings as a rationale for their crappy policy.

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