House Republicans are hoping to soon deliver a win for President Donald Trump’s agenda — or at least his hair — by voting to codify his long-desired showerhead changes into law, one of their top priorities of the new session.
The Shower Act, authored by Rep Russell Fry (R-South Carolina), is poised to be the first bill passed by the House this year, with support expected to fall largely along partisan lines. The legislation, which draws on Trump’s executive order last year to “make America’s showers great again,” would increase how much water could be used in a shower by redefining federal standards around showerheads and allowing multiple nozzles. Supporters say the change would improve water pressure and loosen government regulation; critics say it would weaken energy-efficiency rules and increase household utility costs.
The bill reflects Republicans’ continued eagerness to align with Trump’s governing priorities, allowing even small regulatory changes to flow quickly to the top of the agenda. Trump has repeatedly spoken about his desire for more powerful showers, invoking his struggles with lackluster water pressure and the effect on his signature hairstyle.
Republicans’ legislation is designed to roll back Washington’s “senseless regulations,” Fry said in an interview Wednesday, taking aim at energy-efficiency measures enacted by past Democratic administrations. He also said that his bill — which some Democratic lawmakers and staff privately concede has bipartisan appeal — is driven by common sense, not politics.
“People like showers. They don’t like drizzles,” Fry said. He said he had not spoken to Trump about the bill, which does not yet have a companion measure in the Senate.
White House officials said they supported the bill, praising congressional Republicans’ efforts to codify the president’s agenda. Lawmakers had anticipated a vote on the bill Thursday before congressional leadership bumped it to next week, amid Democrats’ fight to force a vote on Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Democrats mocked the showerhead legislation in the run-up to the planned vote, questioning why Republicans were prioritizing the bill while other, more pressing issues remained stuck in the pipeline. More important, they say, is the still-simmering fight over health care legislation after ACA subsidies expired last year and consumers’ premiums have risen steeply. They also said that the measure underscored a disconnect between Trump’s public promises to focus on affordability and the issues Republicans have chosen to elevate early in the session.
“People still can’t afford rent, groceries are going up, and we’re back in the Rules Committee debating showerheads,” Rep. Jim McGovern (Massachusetts), the top Democrat on the committee, said at a hearing Tuesday night. “I mean, this is beyond stupid.”
The federal showerhead standards were adopted in the early 1990s under a bipartisan energy law to conserve water and energy, lower household utility costs, and ease strain on water systems. Manufacturers have not pushed for legislation to redefine showerheads, and some analysts have said the effect on the average American would be limited.
“There is no consumer need for this change,” the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, an energy conservation advocacy group, wrote in a fact sheet published Wednesday.
Lawmakers also debated the bill on the House floor Wednesday night, with discussion quickly spilling into a proxy debate on the ACA, as they traded barbs about health care legislation, the two parties’ approach to regulation and the effect on average Americans.
“They say, ‘Oh, you’re worried about showerheads.’ We’re worried about the working man,” Rep. Michael A. Rulli (R-Ohio) said Wednesday, arguing that Democrats’ focus on energy efficiency ignored quality-of-life issues, like when lower-income Americans visit motels with low-pressure showers. “The working man cannot even enjoy his daily life. That’s what they have missed,” he said, flanked by a poster board reading “Let freedom flow and regulation go.”
Rep. Melanie Ann Stansbury (D-New Mexico) poured cold water on those claims — saying that Republicans’ legislation was aimed at placating Trump by improving “rich people showers” — and contrasted the GOP’s focus on the bill with Democrats’ efforts to force a vote Wednesday on ACA subsidies.
“You have to understand, Mr. Speaker, how absolutely inane and bizarre it is to come to the floor at 7 p.m. for the first real bill of this Congress this year and have it be on showerheads,” Stansbury said.
“It’s fascinating to me, Mr. Speaker, to hear the impassioned pleas for regular working people to take high-pressure showers in motels because that’s not why Donald Trump signed an executive order on this issue,” Stansbury added. “No, Donald Trump likes his big fancy showers with multiple heads. We’re talking about rich people showers.”
Trump’s interest in the government’s water pressure rules dates back to his first term as president, when he repeatedly complained that the water flow in showers, sinks and other appliances had grown too weak because of Democratic rules intended to increase energy efficiency. Trump’s Energy Department instituted a rule that increased how much water could be used in a shower by allowing multiple nozzles to carry equal amounts of water at once, but the Biden administration reversed the move, prompting Trump to take up the issue again last year.
“The water is dripping out, and that’s no good for me. … I like that hair nice and wet,” Trump said in July at a Florida roundtable, prompting laughter. “You have to stand in the shower for 20 minutes before you get the soap out of your hair. … It sounds funny, but it’s really not. It’s horrible.”
Democrats counter that the unintended consequences of the legislation would dampen Americans’ enthusiasm.
“This bill allows the Trump administration to reinforce, essentially, his legacy of waste because he thinks it’s okay to waste water and waste energy,” Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (New Jersey), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Tuesday. “I don’t think the Republicans care that this bill will result in higher utility bills for American consumers. They only care about pleasing the president.”
Liz Goodwin and Anna Liss-Roy contributed to this report.
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