Attorney General Liz Murrill joined Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and a coalition of 23 state attorneys general in opposing the Biden administration’s latest overreach into the livelihoods of middle-class Americans. This time, the administration has weaseled its way into laundry rooms in an attempt to further their radical energy policies by implementing harmful and costly standards on washing machines.

“Joe Biden continues his attack on Louisianans and consumers across the country. Once again, he and his bureaucratic tyrants want to dictate how you wash and dry your clothes, what car you can drive, how you cook your food, light and heat your house, and the list goes on and on and on. I’ll continue to push back on these ill-conceived policies that only hurt hardworking Louisianans and how they operate their households,” said Attorney General Liz Murrill. 

The action comes in the wake of a newly released direct final rule regulating residential clothes washers that does not consider the economic impact on American consumers who will face appliance hikes due to the new regulations. The attorneys general, in a letter to the United States Department of Energy Secretary Granholm have asked the Department to abandon the rule or, at a minimum, allow notice and comment rulemaking before enacting the standards.  

As the attorneys general highlight, don’t just take their word for it; several appliance companies as well as the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM), had major concerns with the standards proposed by DOE, “AHAM’s comment stressed that the proposed rule would ‘eliminate consumer features, reduces choice, significantly increases cost, and/or negatively impacts product performance.’… Whirlpool, another one of AHAM’s members, wrote separately to further emphasize that the proposed rule was not economically justified.  Research conducted by Whirlpool showed a 25% increase cost for consumers and a potential 31% loss in industry net present value, which could result in more than 8,000 American job losses.”

AHAM, advocacy groups, and a select group of states, after reaching an impasse, did eventually consent to the new rule in a joint statement. However, as the attorneys general note that statement “was the result of administrative arm-twisting and did not address issues raised by important stakeholders during the period for comments on the proposed rule… The joint statement also relies largely on the support of several advocacy groups, including the Alliance for Water Efficiency, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, the Natural Resource Defense Council, Earthjustice, and the National Consumer Law Center. These niche advocacy groups do not represent the interests of everyday consumers, and their input should not be given significant weight by DOE.”

Additionally, the attorneys general continue, argue that by law DOE cannot issue this rule without agreement from across the ideological spectrum. By statute, this type of rule “must come from ‘interested persons that are fairly representative of the relevant points of view.’” Massachusetts and California may agree with the Biden Administration, but many states do not. As the attorneys general note, “[a] handful of States favor DOE’s proposal, while a much larger group of States strongly oppose it. DOE cannot cherry pick the States with which it is politically aligned to circumvent the ordinary rulemaking process.”

The attorneys general call on the Department of Energy to allow the public a chance to comment on this regulation as it will “reach its way into homes”. Louisiana urges DOE to seriously reevaluate its direct final rule in light of all this information. 

Attorney General Liz Murrill and Attorney General Moody were joined on the letter by the attorneys general from: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia. 

Read the letter below.