Trump administration moves to gut energy efficiency rules for home appliances

As punishing heat sends the U.S. power grid to the brink and Americans reel from rising electricity costs, the Trump administration is moving to weaken efficiency standards for home appliances proven to cut power demand and lower utility bills.

The Energy Department on Thursday said the proposal would “Permanently End Green New Scam Appliance Mandates.” It takes aim at energy conservation standards for a host of appliances, including air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines.

For decades, Congress has required those standards to be continually updated, creating pressure on manufacturers to make each generation of new appliances more efficient.

The administration plan would prohibit further updates in many cases, as part of an effort to “preserve consumer choice and lower costs.”

If ultimately approved by the Energy Department following a period of public comment, the plan would inhibit future administrations from pursuing more efficient appliances and could result in Americans using gigawatts more energy than they would under the current program guidelines.

“In America, you should be able to choose a dryer that dries clothes on the first try rather than one that takes multiple cycles – unfortunately, past administrations thought otherwise,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement.

“This proposed rule will preserve the American people’s ability to choose home appliances and equipment that actually work – at prices they can afford.”

President Donald Trump’s attack on efficiency standards began during his first term in office, when he first took aim at the efficiency mandates that for decades prior had drawn broad bipartisan support in Washington, D.C., and among the electorate.

The rule changes proposed by the Energy Department are similar to those the Trump administration pushed through in 2020, only to see them reversed after President Joe Biden took office.

The proposal announced Thursday follows other moves to loosen efficiency rules since Trump returned to the White House.

In May 2025, the Energy Department tried to unravel long established efficiency requirements for 16 categories of appliances. Federal law generally prohibits the agency from weakening standards for particular products once they are in effect, and a coalition of Democratic-led states is poised to sue if the administration finalizes those regulations.

Appliance makers were also unnerved. Trade groups argued manufacturers already made considerable investments in more efficient products and that rolling back the rules would put them at a competitive disadvantage.

The next round of federal efficiency updates, which would take effect between 2029 and 2035, have the potential to reduce peak summer electricity demand by 34 gigawatts in 2040 – equivalent to 34 large nuclear reactors or the power used by tens of millions of homes, according to an analysis by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, a coalition of consumer groups, utilities, state regulators and environmental advocates that support efficiency.

That could ease strain on the power grid, as electricity companies struggle to keep the lights on while also meeting the explosive energy demands of the AI industry.

The Trump administration has already declared multiple power emergencies because of spikes in power demand on the grid this year. The declarations include orders for utilities to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to keep operating coal plants that had been slated for retirement.

In response to questions from the Washington Post, Assistant Energy Secretary Audrey Robertson said in an email that innovation and energy savings are central to the department’s mission. But it opposes “regulations that deliver minimal energy savings, greatly limit consumer choice, force electrification, and impose significant cost increases on American families, as occurred under the Biden Administration,” she wrote.

Supporters of the existing rules point to research showing the additional costs that efficiency improvements add to appliances are more than offset by the savings they create on utility bills.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” said Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project. “They want to handcuff a policy that works well to save energy in our homes and businesses and frees up electricity capacity to meet the growing needs of our economy. It also saves people money.”

DeLaski said he was confused by Wright’s claims around dysfunctional clothes dryers because the existing rules do not allow products on the marketplace if they do not function properly. Appliances typically have settings that allow consumers to run them in energy-intensive ways if preferred, he said.

“Maybe Secretary Wright needs a new dryer,” deLaski said. “I don’t know what is wrong with it. But whatever the problem is, it is not because of efficiency standards. Under the rules enforced today, if a dryer does not get your clothes dry on the automatic cycle, it fails the test and can’t be sold.”

Some appliance manufacturers that resisted rollbacks of existing efficiency standards proposed last year welcomed the latest plan to limit the requirements that regulators could impose in the future.

Kelly Mariotti, president of the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, said in a statement that the rules guiding efficiency mandates have been subject to change between different administrations. That creates “the kind of uncertainty and instability that makes it difficult for manufacturers to plan, invest, and innovate with confidence,” she said.

The American Gas Association, a fossil fuel industry group, also embraced the change proposed by the Energy Department. “Customers deserve the right to choose the appliances that work best for them and their families,” said a statement from Karen Harbert, the group’s president. She said the plan “will safeguard families and businesses from being locked into decisions that aren’t right for them.”