In a post on Truth Social, Trump said, "I am hereby instructing Secretary Lee Zeldin to immediately go back to my Environmental Orders, which were terminated by Crooked Joe Biden, on Water Standards and Flow pertaining to SINKS, SHOWERS, TOILETS, WASHING MACHINES, DISHWASHERS, etc., and to likewise go back to the common sense standards on light bulbs, that were put in place by the Trump Administration, but terminated by Crooked Joe. I look forward to signing these Orders. THANK YOU!!!"
In 2019, during his first term, Trump spoke out against the lightbulb initiatives put in place by President Barack Obama, which banned the manufacture of incandescent bulbs in the United States. When President Joe Biden became president, he further banned the importation of incandescent bulbs.
"The light bulb they got rid of, the light bulb that people got used to, the new bulb is many times more expensive. And I hate to say it, it doesn't make you look as good. Of course, being a vain person, that's really important to me, gives you an orange look. I don't want an orange look," Trump said to laughs from reporters. During his first term, a common insult from media and Democrats was that his skin looked orange. "Has anyone noticed?"
Biden also reversed Trump's rule for shower heads, which gave Americans the option of using low-flow shower heads or not. In 2022, Biden reversed Trump's rule on flow from shower heads that came from Obama. The rule from Obama said that only 2.5 gallons of water per minute in total could come from a shower head, regardless of how many nozzles the shower head had. Trump's rule said that each nozzle should be able to send 2.5 or more gallons. Biden's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy said in response to the Biden change that "As many parts of America experience historic droughts, this commonsense proposal means consumers can purchase shower heads that conserve water and save them money on their utility bills."
Trump is changing it back to what he had when he was president during his first term, allowing consumers to make their own decision rather than limiting what is obtainable in the marketplace.
"We have a situation where we’re looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on – and in areas where there’s tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it, and you don’t get any water," Trump said in 2019.
"You turn on the faucet and you don’t get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. Just dripping out, very quietly dripping out. People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once," he went on to say.
"You go into a new building or a new house or a new home and they have standards only you don’t get water. You can’t wash your hands practically, there’s so little water that comes out of the faucet. And the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your hands. There may be some areas where we’ll go the other route – desert areas – but for the most part you have many states where they have so much water – it comes down, it’s called rain. They don’t know what to do with it. So we’re going to be looking at opening up that I believe. And we’re looking at changing the standards very soon," Trump said.
The plan to remove incandescent light bulbs from the American marketplace was gradual and began in 2007 with the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act, which said that light bulbs that have standards of energy efficiency more than 45 lumens per watt were not to be made in America. The importation of these bulbs was also ruled out, and in 2023, the Biden administration further restricted the bulbs to outlaw those bulbs that did not produce 120 lumens per watt.
The ban of the incandescent bulb was centered around energy efficiency standards that incandescent bulbs could not meet, meaning that LED bulbs would take their place. These energy efficiency standards made it impossible for incandescent bulb makers to continue to sell their products. In 2022, under the Biden administration, the Department of Energy said the transition would be gradual under what they called "progressive enforcement."
"By raising energy efficiency standards for lightbulbs, we’re putting $3 billion back in the pockets of American consumers every year and substantially reducing domestic carbon emissions," Biden's Energy Sec Jennifer Granholm said. "The lighting industry is already embracing more energy efficient products, and this measure will accelerate progress to deliver the best products to American consumers and build a better and brighter future."
Obama and Biden's idea was to entirely replace all bulbs with LED bulbs over a decades-long roll out. Trump's idea is to let Americans decide what kind of light they want to use in their homes and businesses and allow them to choose based on their own preference, not to be forced to use specific kinds of light bulbs based on government regulation.
