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One of the Trump administration’s final public policy campaigns was an effort to – as he put it – “make dishwashers great again.” It was a slogan as over-the-top and eccentric as the former president. However, it did refer to a legitimate public policy concern. For years, the Department of Energy (DOE) had restrictions in place limiting the water usage of home appliances – not least among them were dishwashers. And, thus, one of Donald Trump’s last acts as president was to have DOE create rules to allow a new, legal class of more efficient dishwashers.
The logic was very simple. From 1983 to 2018, the average wash cycle time in the U.S. more than doubled from 69 minutes to 140 minutes. While, the appliances used less water, they ran for twice the time and did not perform as well. Naturally, 98 percent of the 2,244 people who submitted comments to the Trump DOE’s regulatory docket supported the proposal for the legalization of…