Crime in the Shower

            There are shower criminals lurking around plumbing supply stores and the federal Department of Energy intends to hunt them down.  According to the Wall Street Journal, “In May, the DOE stunned the plumbing-products industry when it said it would adopt a strict definition of the term ‘showerhead.’”  Bureaucrats in Washington D.C. are writing regulations on the kind of showerhead you can have in your bathroom.Raindance Imperial 600, now illegal

            The federal government has already leveled fines of over $165,000 on manufacturers that did not comply and retailers have removed some showerheads from the shelves.  One that might already be gone from the shelves is the Raindance Imperial 600, shown here.  A 1992 law requires that the showerhead in your bathroom deliver no more than 2.5 gallons a minute.  However, some manufacturers have combined showerheads together allowing them to deliver much more water.  The Department of Energy now considers any group of showerheads to be a single unit and the whole can rain no more than 2.5 gallons per minute on the bather. 

            Did congress intend to limit consumer choice when they passed the original law?  "When you waste water, you waste energy," says Blake Harris of the Department of Energy. Therefore, according to him and other unelected bureaucrats, it is the intent of the law.  The government already makes rain barrels illegal, limits the water you toilet uses, the light bulbs you can buy and now how much water falls from your showerhead. The Founding Fathers could never have imagined a government so intrusive.