The Low-Hanging Fruit of Climate Change – Water and Energy Efficiency Standards

Over the past four years, we have been faced with several thought provoking questions – What is a showerhead? How many times do you have to run a dishwasher to get clean dishes? What type of lightbulb best illuminates a President? The Trump Administration's Department of Energy (DOE) attempted to answer these questions by taking a new look at established energy and water efficiency standards resulting in the hydra-like showerhead and water jets from shower walls, a rollback of light bulb standards and a complete change in the process of how efficiency is determined. On his first day in office, President Biden announced that his administration will launch a federal review of these Trump-era water and energy efficiency standards. (See Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis). Importantly, energy efficiency standards provide low-hanging fruit toward President Biden's Climate Change goals of achieving a carbon-pollution free electricity sector by 2035 and a net-zero carbon emissions economy by 2050.