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The Trump administration is moving to change American showerhead regulations so they can spray more water, addressing a long-held annoyance of US President Donald Trump, who says he needs more water to wash his hair.
The US Department of Energy proposed revisions on Wednesday to regulations that dictate how much water a showerhead can release per minute.
They would loosen a rule, introduced to conserve water, that limits showers to releasing a maximum of 2.5 gallons (about 9.5 litres) of water per minute.
The proposal comes after Trump’s public grievances about shower water flow.
He said on the White House lawn in July that he doesn’t get enough water to wash his hair properly.
“So showerheads – you take a shower, the water doesn’t come out. You want to wash your hands, the water doesn’t come out,” he said, per Associated Press.
“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.”
Existing shower regulations began in 1992, when a rule was introduced that a shower head should not release more than 2.5 gallons (9.5 liters) of water per minute, the AP reported.
The Obama administration tightened its definition, applying the 2.5 limit to the entire shower instead. The move was likely a response to multi-headed showers becoming more common.
Under Trump’s new plan, the 2.5 gallon limit would again apply to each shower head. A shower with two heads could release 5 gallons per minute, and one with four could release 10.
Andrew deLaski, the executive director of Appliance Standards Awareness Project, an energy conservation group, told the AP “you could have 10, 15 gallons per minute powering out of the showerhead, literally probably washing you out of the bathroom.”
He called the proposed changes “silly.”
“The country faces serious problems. We’ve got a pandemic, serious long-term drought throughout much of the West. We’ve got global climate change. Showerheads aren’t one of our problems.”
He said that water and conservation limits, like the one on shower heads, save consumers about $500 (around R9,000) every year on energy bills.
Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for the US Department of Energy, told the AP that the change would mean “allowing Americans – not Washington bureaucrats – to choose what kind of showerheads they have in their homes.”
Reuters noted that it’s not clear if the proposal will be finalised, and that it could face opposition in court.
Showers aren’t the only household appliance that Trump has taken issue with.
He took time during a rally in Milwaukee in January to target energy-efficient lightbulbs, which he said “make you look orange,” and “new” dishwashers which he said meant you had to wash your dishes “10 times” to clean them.
And he also criticised what he said were weaker showers: “I have this beautiful head of hair. I need a lot of water.”
He said: “We’re getting rid of the restrictors. You’re going to have full shower flow.”
