Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

3 days ago

Trump Says He’s Willing to Let Migrant Farm Laborers Stay in US

3 days ago

US Electric Vehicle Tax Breaks Will Expire on Sept. 30

4 days ago

Eyeing Arctic Dominance, Trump Bill Earmarks $8.6 Billion for US Coast Guard Icebreakers

4 days ago

Trump’s Sweeping Tax-Cut and Spending Bill Wins Congressional Approval

4 days ago

Americans Celebrate Their Independence With Record-Breaking Travel Numbers

4 days ago

US Supreme Court to Decide Legality of Transgender School Sports Bans

4 days ago

Nvidia Set to Become the World’s Most Valuable Company in History

4 days ago

Poll: 41% in US ‘Extremely Proud’ to Be American, Near Historic Low

4 days ago
Trump Repeals Biden-Era Limit on Water Flow in Shower Heads
d8a347b41db1ddee634e2d67d08798c102ef09ac
By The New York Times
Published 3 months ago on
April 10, 2025

FILE — A woman showers in Edgartown, Mass., on May 4, 2021. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to loosen restrictions on water flow from American shower heads. (Elizabeth Cecil/The New York Times)

Share

How long does it take you to wet your hair in the shower? A few seconds? A minute?

The president of the United States, who has long complained about being unable to coax more than a dribble or trickle of water from his showers, says it takes him much longer.

“I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office. “I stand under the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.”

Much of the world was focused at that moment on his trade war, but Trump wanted to talk about showers. He offered this insight while signing an executive order to loosen restrictions on water flow from American shower heads. The order directs Energy Secretary Chris Wright to rescind a definition of shower heads first implemented by President Barack Obama.

It is the second time Trump as president has attempted to redefine a shower head. A rule he introduced in his first term drastically increased the amount of water that showers with multiple nozzles could use. The Biden administration later reversed that change.

“No longer will shower heads be weak and worthless,” the White House said in a news release Wednesday.

How Big of an Issue Is This?

How big of an issue is this, really? And how many ways can you define a shower head?

For Trump, it has been a long-running crusade.

A Long-Running Complaint

He has railed for years against low water pressure in bathrooms, an issue in some New York City high-rises. During his first term in the White House, he lamented that his showers did not supply enough water for him to achieve his “perfect” hair, part of a campaign against what he described as excessive government regulation.

“You take a shower, the water doesn’t come out,” he said in 2020. “You want to wash your hands, the water doesn’t come out. 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.”

At a dinner with Republican leaders in 2023, he repeated his complaint: “You know I have this gorgeous head of hair — when I take a shower, I want water to pour down on me. When you go into these new homes with showers, the water drips down slowly, slowly.”

Trump’s new order restores language from a 1992 federal law, enacted to conserve water, that prevented new American-made shower heads from spritzing more than 2.5 gallons of water per minute. Some states, including California and Colorado, as well as New York City, have imposed their own lower rates.

As showers with multiple nozzles became more common, the Obama administration ordered the 2.5-gallon limit to be applied to each shower head, not each nozzle.

Regulatory Back and Forth

Toward the end of Trump’s first presidential term, he set out to redefine what constitutes a shower head.

Previously, it had been defined in federal regulations as “any plumbing fitting designed to direct water onto a bather,” meaning that a unit with multiple nozzles counted as a single shower head.

Trump’s first administration changed that, defining it as “an accessory to a supply fitting for spraying water onto a bather.” That meant that each nozzle counted as an individual shower head, and each could pump out 2.5 gallons, with no restrictions on the total number of nozzles. It released a diagram showing examples of shower heads with as many as eight nozzles, which could theoretically spray 20 gallons of water per minute.

Back then, Trump also redefined the bathroom fitting known as a “body spray” to make it a different category from a shower head, and therefore exempt it from the 2.5-gallon limit, because it sprays water sideways instead of downward.

After Joe Biden became president in 2021, he rescinded Trump’s rules. Most commercially made shower heads had continued to comply with the Obama-era standard anyway.

According to the Appliances Standard Awareness Project, an energy conservation advocacy group, few manufacturers took advantage of the Trump rule on shower heads, and some opposed it. When the Biden administration rescinded the rule in 2021, the Energy Department said it was, in part, because showers that provided the extra water desired by Trump were not widely available.

It’s unclear what effect if any Trump’s new executive order will have. If your water pressure is weak, according to the Appliances Standard Awareness Project, it’s probably because of your home plumbing or because of lime scale buildup on the shower head, rather than anything to do with the flow rate.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Yan Zhuang/Elizabeth Cecil
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

DON'T MISS

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

DON'T MISS

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

DON'T MISS

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

DON'T MISS

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

DON'T MISS

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

DON'T MISS

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

DON'T MISS

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

DON'T MISS

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

UP NEXT

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

UP NEXT

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

UP NEXT

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

UP NEXT

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

UP NEXT

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

UP NEXT

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

UP NEXT

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

UP NEXT

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

UP NEXT

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

UP NEXT

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rachelle Maria Blanco

Wanted Fugitive Found Hiding in Attic Arrested in Chowchilla

1 hour ago

Trump Says US Will Impose 25% Tariffs on Japan, South Korea

2 hours ago

Wall Street Knocked Lower by Tariff Jitters, Musk’s Political Plan Hurts Tesla

2 hours ago

Trial Over Free Speech on Campus, and Trump’s Student Crackdown, Begins

2 hours ago

Planned Parenthood Sues Trump Administration Over Planned Defunding

2 hours ago

San Luis Obispo’s Madre Fire Injures 1 Firefighter, Burns Over 80,000 Acres

2 hours ago

Two Border Patrol Officers Injured After Gunman Opens Fire in Texas

2 hours ago

Fresno Police Arrest 9 at Independence Day DUI Checkpoint

3 hours ago

Schumer Wants Probe of National Weather Service Response in Texas

3 hours ago

Israeli Guilt Over Gaza Lurks Beneath Silence and Denial

3 hours ago

Man Dead After Firing at US Border Patrol Station in Texas

WASHINGTON – A 27-year-old Michigan man was shot dead by police after opening fire with an assault rifle on a U.S. Border Patrol stati...

28 minutes ago

Photo of caution tape
28 minutes ago

Man Dead After Firing at US Border Patrol Station in Texas

The Flume Fire in Sequoia National Forest has burned 65 acres near Highway 190 with no containment as of Monday, July 7, 2025, prompting evacuations in Tulare County. (CalFire)
39 minutes ago

Tulare County Flume Fire Burns 65 Acres in Sequoia National Forest, Evacuation Order Issued

Firefighters stopped the forward progress of the Fish Fire near Avocado Lake after it burned 15 acres Monday, July 7, 2025, reaching 50% containment. (CalFire)
54 minutes ago

Fresno County Fish Fire Burns 15 Acres Near Avocado Lake, 50% Contained

Gary White, 42, a wanted fugitive, was arrested in Chowchilla after deputies found him hiding in an attic and he surrendered without incident on Thursday, July 3, 2025. (Madera County SO)
1 hour ago

Wanted Fugitive Found Hiding in Attic Arrested in Chowchilla

Containers on a cargo ship are pictured at an industrial port in Tokyo, Japan, July 2, 2025. (Reuters File)
2 hours ago

Trump Says US Will Impose 25% Tariffs on Japan, South Korea

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., June 30, 2025. (Reuters/Brendan McDermid)
2 hours ago

Wall Street Knocked Lower by Tariff Jitters, Musk’s Political Plan Hurts Tesla

Protesters march near the campus of Columbia University in upper Manhattan to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and former Columbia student, on March 14, 2025. A federal judge in Boston on Monday, July 7, 2025, will hear opening statements in a trial expected to present the foremost challenge to the Trump administration’s aggressive posture toward foreign students who espoused pro-Palestinian views. (Dave Sanders/The New York Times)
2 hours ago

Trial Over Free Speech on Campus, and Trump’s Student Crackdown, Begins

Activists for Planned Parenthood demonstrate as the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in South Carolina's bid to cut off public funding to Planned Parenthood, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 2, 2025. (Reuters File)
2 hours ago

Planned Parenthood Sues Trump Administration Over Planned Defunding

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend