Coming clean on dishwasher rule.

These days, the U.S. government is both grappling with a host of critical issues affecting people's safety and security and trying to figure out how best to get the economy moving. Yet, lest we take for granted that government always has its priorities right, here's just one example of those priorities going wildly astray. Under an energy-efficiency rule for dishwashers, the Department of Energy is now focusing on the really important question facing the U.S.: How dirty are the dishes put in our dishwashers?

It turns out that the DOE has to revise its test procedures to figure out the amount of energy used by dishwashers. At the end of January, they sent out an official Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and announced a formal public workshop to grapple with this issue. DOE's major concern is how to revise the test for measuring dishwashers' energy efficiency. Their current test -- don't laugh -- measures the energy used when a dishwasher washes clean dishes. (Why that was adopted must be an interesting story.) But technology has reared its ugly head: There are now dishwashers that sense how dirty the dishes are, and then adjust the wash cycles to accommodate the dirt level. Guess what the DOE found? The new dishwashers used less energy washing clean dishes than washing dirty ones. So the energy-efficient ratings of those appliances don't truly reflect those machines doing their job -- that is, cleaning dirty dishes. In the words of our government, the smart dishwashers "... created a challenge to the Dishwasher Test Procedure." No surprise there, as government's zeal for regulating people's household appliances (clothes washers and toilets) has led to a "one size fits all" -- and a "to hell with technology" -- approach. In the case of toilets, low-flush (or, sometimes, no-flush) toilets resulted.

In the latest household-appliance saga, the main purpose was to gather data for a new test of dishwashers' use of energy. The Energy Department of course hired consultants to review several surveys of consumer dishwashing behavior. A report by Arthur D. Little, Inc., released on December 18 focused on "key questions in revising the test procedure for dishwashers." Among these are: "How soiled are dishes in the dishwashers of U.S. households?" "How are the dishwashers loaded in U.S. households?" and "How often do U.S. households use a dishwasher?" The government also wanted to know whether consumers rinse their dishes before putting them in the machines.

There were some earthshaking findings. About 7 percent of U.S. households "do nothing" to their dishes before they run their dishwashers, not bothering to wipe food scraps off the dishware. Some people even use plastic dishes, and there is a hint that further monies will likely be spent to study the "impact of plastic dishware." At the other extreme of dishwashing behavior, 15 percent of U.S. households prewash their dishes; this includes some scrubbing.

And what about the level of goop on the dishes? That crucial question, too, is being addressed by our government. Sixty-two percent of households reported that their dishes were only lightly soiled, with a mere 5 percent laying claim to really dirty dishes.

In the midst of war and terrorist attacks, DOE is spending lots of money trying to find the answers to these and other questions. American taxpayers could ask a basic question of their own: Why is the government spending tax dollars on questions and answers about dirty dishes that are better handled by detergent makers and dishwasher manufacturers?

Frances B. Smith

(Article originally appeared in National Review Online.)