Consumers lose on clothes-washer rule.

Consumer Alert supported a petition sent to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in March urging him to open up for reconsideration a rule that would require consumers to pay almost $250 more for a new clothes washer. Unfortunately, the final rule went through and the days of$199 top-loading washers are past.

The petition by the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Ben Lieberman and the Mercatus Center's Wendy Lee Gramm was submitted on behalf of thirteen individuals and organizations, including Consumer Alert, with membership totaling more than a million, all concerned about the impact on consumers.

A key argument in the petition was that the Department of Energy had not properly assessed the economic impact the rule would have on consumers. The DOE claimed the rule, which would require that clothes washers use 35 percent less energy by the year 2007, would allow consumers to recoup the costs of the washer through energy savings. But this assertion was based on dubious figures, including a claim that the average consumer launders 392 loads of clothes per year. The petition cited a consumer survey commissioned by Mercatus that indicated only 28.9 percent of consumers washed even six loads per week.

The Mercatus survey introduces new information that DOE did not even consider when it rubber-stamped the manufacturers' and green groups' so-called "Joint Stakeholder Comment."

The petition noted, "through the Joint Comment, representatives of the entire United States clothes washer market agreed to a future limitation of production to models estimated to cost 59 percent more than the current average. If such an agreement were made and implemented outside of any federal regulatory context, the Department of Justice would almost certainly initiate antitrust proceedings."

Two seniors groups, The Seniors Coalition and United Seniors Association, Inc., were also among those represented by the petition, which discussed how the DOE's analysis greatly understated the disproportionate costs that would be borne by seniors and the poor under the rule.

The final decision not to reconsider the clothes washer rule was a blow to early hopes that the Bush Administration would stand firm for consumer choice and against anti-energy activists and corporate welfare. Similar rules regarding heat pumps and air conditioners were modified, but not repealed. The politics of those rules were different, because they were not supported by manufacturers.