OPINION:
Americans may not realize how different their lives would be right now had Vice President Kamala Harris moved into the Oval Office 3½ months ago. Democrats were poised to advance their perverse schemes to render modern conveniences progressively worse when voters crushed their fantasy.
Nationwide, gas is cheaper with President Trump at the helm. AAA’s scoreboard shows an average gallon costs $3.18, down from $3.67 last May. This figure is a bit misleading because the price in sane jurisdictions such as Virginia and Texas has dropped to $3 or $2.75, respectively. Large, hyper-regulatory states like California skew the national average by imposing so many taxes that the pump price jumps to $4.80.
The same left-leaning zealotry that makes driving in the Golden State unaffordable was about to spoil electric motors, ceiling fans, dehumidifiers and external power supplies. Energy Department employees had a set of rules ready to go that would have doubled costs and halved the functionality of these products under a prospective Democratic administration.
The department’s new management team dashed the busybodies’ dreams, most recently by canceling plans to overregulate hot tubs. Last month, the House and Senate joined the effort by approving Congressional Review Act repeals of President Biden’s red tape for walk-in freezers and gas-fired water heaters. These joint resolutions are headed to the White House for Mr. Trump’s eager signature.
As consumers clamored for alternatives to the feeble showering experience designed by leftist regulators, Mr. Biden dispatched the bathroom police to hunt down any company that dared fill that demand. One of the cleverest solutions to the bureaucratic hurdles used an array of multiple 2½-gallon-per-minute nozzles that restored reasonable flow levels. The bathroom police declared such products illegal.
Mr. Trump defunded the bathroom police and legalized work-arounds. “Americans pay for their water and should be free to choose the showerheads they prefer,” Deputy Assistant Energy Secretary Lou Hrkman said.
As the president boosted consumer showering efficiency, he also deftly reasserted his authority over the executive branch. In his executive order, he declared: “Notice and comment is unnecessary because I am ordering the repeal. The rescission shall be effective 30 days from the date of publication of the notice.”
Federal judges, nearly all appointed by Democrats, have been pointing to the lack of such notice as an excuse to preserve the policies that Ms. Harris would have kept into place. The president called the judicial bluff by asserting that the commander in chief, not the federal bureaucracy, holds exclusive power under Article II of the Constitution to set executive branch policy. Unelected mandarins tweaked standards in ways that ruined modern refrigerators, air conditioning units and dishwashers. They would have made just about every home appliance significantly more expensive had they been empowered by another four years of Democratic rule.
Their reach is so deeply embedded within the federal leviathan that the U.S. Agency for International Development directed taxpayer dollars to Hanoi so the Socialist Republic of Vietnam could flood the U.S. market with ineffective paper straws.
The prior administration also required government agencies to appoint a “chief sustainability officer” to oversee the implementation of far-left whims such as the ban on plastic straws, a strategy invented by a 9-year-old child who wanted to save turtles through activism.
Puerile policies are right up the Democratic alley. Fortunately, voters put the adults back in charge. It’s now up to private companies to create functional products while they still can.
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