LA has water partly thanks to something Trump wants to eliminate | Opinion
Most Californians probably think little about the efficiency of any given plumbing fixture, but the modern-day showerhead is among an arsenal of water-saving devices that help explain how California cities have grown for more than a generation while using less water.
Instead of being praised for supporting efficient water-saving devices like showerheads and quietly waging war on inefficient ones like toilets, Trump is trying to tell California how it should regulate water usage.
This is dangerous given that bad water policy could leave communities short of water when, say, there is a devastating fire. And Washington telling California how to regulate water is also outright unconstitutional.
President Donald Trump unleashed his latest tirade against American norms with an executive order Thursday in the quest of “maintaining adequate water pressure in showerheads.” He has eliminated federal energy definitions of the shower device in the hopes of eliminating restrictions for how many gallons a showerhead can emit per minute.
First instituted during the Obama administration, then eliminated in Trump’s first term and then reinstated again by President Joe Biden, federal regulations limit a showerhead to emitting 2.5 gallons of water in a minute.
In California, the maximum showerhead gusher has been 1.8 gallons since 2018. There should be no turning back on regulations that save water, but the president has other concerns.
“I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” Trump said Thursday. “I have to stand in the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. … It’s ridiculous.”
What’s truly ridiculous is that the math of water conservation is so overwhelming in its usefulness, it should be bipartisan.
My former employer, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, in a generation has reduced its sales of water by about half from Northern California and the Colorado River as it serves half of California’s population. Reducing the water of every toilet flush from 7 gallons to 1.28 gallons, provides water savings millions of times every day.
Southern California now has more water in reserve than at any time in its history. The region would be staring at shortages right now absent massive new sources of supply. Abundance of water is due to the war on the inefficient showerhead, the wasteful lawn, the old washing machine and virtually every single device that now uses less water than before.
It is settled law by the U.S. Supreme Court that California, through its water rights system, can regulate the beneficial uses of water. A president who wants every state to regulate, say, abortion surely will respect the local control of the showerhead.
When a president signs more executive orders than he has served days in office, at some point he begins to advance some pretty unmeasured policies. That day has arrived.
Don’t mess with the California showerhead. When here, Mr. President, please learn to go with the flow.