United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday repealing limits to the flow of water from bathroom showers imposed by previous Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
Biden and Obama introduced these limits to increase efficiency and conserve water. Where their focus was on the environment, Trump’s order aims to “make America’s showers great again”, a White House fact sheet says.
Showerheads, it added, will no longer be “weak and worthless”.
Trump’s order to free the showerhead from regulations would, he said, help him wash his “beautiful hair”.
It came at a time when Trump’s back-and-forth tariff policies had washed away billions of dollars from stock markets, which plunged after his declaration of a trade war on the rest of the world, only to gain back some lost territory after his sudden reprieve on tariffs for most countries.
Here is more about Trump’s latest order:
What is Trump’s executive order about showerheads?
Trump’s order calls on Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to reverse the definitions of what constitutes a showerhead in the US, as implemented by Obama and Biden. “The Biden definition was a staggering 13,000 words. The Oxford English Dictionary, by contrast, defines ‘showerhead’ in one short sentence,” the White House fact sheet says.
Trump wants to go back to a 1992 federal energy law, which sets the standard of water pressure for showers to 2.5 gallons (9.5 litres) per minute. Over the years, new showerhead designs began to include multiple nozzles or spray systems.
To ensure water conservation, the Obama administration clarified the rule in 2013 to say that even if a showerhead has multiple nozzles, they collectively should not release more than 2.5 gallons a minute.
“These changes served a radical green agenda that made life worse for everyday Americans,” the White House factsheet says about the Obama-era rule. “Overregulation chokes the American economy, entrenches bureaucrats, and stifles personal freedom.”
It seems that the intention of Trump’s order is to allow each nozzle to eject up to 2.5 gallons of water a minute, Andrew deLaski, the executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, which advocates for efficiency standards, told Al Jazeera.
So, if a showerhead has four nozzles, it could release up to 10 gallons (38 litres) a minute.
“We’ll have to see what the Secretary of Energy publishes in the rule to understand exactly how they carry out that intention.”
While signing the order in the Oval Office, Trump said: “In my case, I like to take a nice shower, take care of my beautiful hair. I have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.”
Has Trump eased showerhead rules before?
During his first administration, Trump reversed the Obama-era rule to allow multiple nozzles on one showerhead to each spray out 2.5 gallons of water per minute individually, increasing the permitted amount of water released by a singular showerhead. This was finalised in December 2020.
“So, showerheads – you take a shower, the water doesn’t come out. You want to wash your hands, the water doesn’t come out. So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer. Because my hair – I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect. Perfect,” Trump said on the campaign trail in 2019.
He has complained about low water pressure multiple times since.
In 2021, the Biden administration reversed Trump’s relaxation of water flow rules. Biden went back to Obama’s 2013 rule to permit an overall 2.5 gallons of water per minute for a showerhead, regardless of the number of nozzles on it.
“Biden undid this progress and the shower wars continued,” says the White House factsheet.
DeLaski said that he is not aware of any manufacturers that took advantage of Trump’s relaxation of showerhead rules in his first term.
“That’s because they don’t need to in order to make an excellent showerhead. Test after test has shown that there are many, many high-quality showerheads on the market that provide a dense soak.”
However, if manufacturers did take advantage of the new showerhead rules, “you could see water use double, triple or even quadruple for people purchasing those showerheads”, deLaski said.
How could this affect Americans?
The average family spends $1,000 every year on water costs, according to a factsheet by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), last updated on March 24.
The EPA estimated that households could save more than $380 annually if they retrofitted their homes with WaterSense-labelled fixtures and energy-efficient appliances. A showerhead qualifies for the WaterSense label if it releases no more than 3 gallons (7.6 litres) per minute.
“Bills for water and wastewater have gone up faster than inflation year after year, and showerheads account for about one-fifth of US households’ indoor water use,” deLaski said.
A US government-backed report, published in 2019, issued a warning that climate change and population growth increase the risk of water shortages in many regions of the country.
