Sen. Shelley Hughes is hosting a food security workshop on Saturday, Feb. 22, from 9 a.m. to noon at Palmer Jr. Middle School. In response to the Food Strategy Task Force’s call to improve local food security, the workshop will promote agricultural and food independence at both the household and community levels. Anyone interested in growing, raising, harvesting, or preserving food is encouraged to attend at no cost.
The event will include networking opportunities, local experts, the Mat-Su Farm Bureau, and students from the Future Farmers of America. Presentations and table discussions include a wide range of topics including livestock rearing, gardening, hunting, fishing, food processing, food preservation, beekeeping, hobby to commercial farming, and more.
Sen. Hughes invites everyone to attend.
“This is an exciting event and opportunity for Alaskans of all stripes. Whether you’ve always wanted your own fresh eggs, thought raising goats might suit your fancy, are hungry for more knowledge about best gardening practices, or are ready to maximize productivity despite your small space, this event will be the perfect venue for you to network with friendly and helpful neighbors-in-the-know,” she said.
Senator Hughes is chairwoman of the Food Strategy Task Force, directed in statute to develop and implement strategies to foster local food security
Hughes said she hopes other communities in Alaska will replicate this low-budget event, bringing residents together with local experts to spark interest and action in boosting greater food independence in their region of the state.
At the state capital, corrupt insiders in the Deep Swamp are actively sabotaging the future of Alaska’s children.
These special interest cronies, who have no genuine concern for our youth’s education and never have, blatantly lie about their commitment to educating our children while shamelessly intending on increasing and redirecting state funds through proposed legislation to feed their own self-serving agendas and enrich the Deep State.
This display of legislative self-indulgence, another example of the putrid self-licking s___-flavored ice cream cone, has been served to the public by Independent Representative Rebecca Himschoot, a former teacher and frontwoman for the Alaska public education union, and sponsors, Representatives Maxine Dibert, Andy Josephson, Ky Holland, Alyse Galvin, Genevieve Mina, Zack Fields, Ashley Carrick, Andi Story, Sara Hannan, Calvin Schrage, and Ted Eischeid.
House Bill 69 is a two-page opus aimed at inflating the Base Student Allocation as if swelling a balloon that will soon deflate under its own weight is the answer to Alaska’s education tragedy.
The bill proposed to amend AS 14.17.470 which is the base student allocation (BSA). It is now one simple sentence which reads, “The base student allocation is $5,960.”
The BSA is a foundational component of Alaska’s public school funding formula in an already extremely convoluted and deceptive process designed by the public education union to wean every dollar out of the feds, state and taxpayers while providing no promise of educational improvement, performance or results for Alaska’s future, our children.
The HB 69 sponsor’s statement contends that Alaska’s constitutional duty to provide free public education extends to every child and young adult, yet the Constitution only mandates that the legislature “establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children.”
The sponsors’ call for universal free education is a calculated deception—a lie designed to conceal their own graft. The Constitution only requires that we provide basic educational access for children, leaving further opportunities to legislative discretion.
By exploiting this narrow mandate, the cronies behind HB 69—and ultimately the Democrat-RINO controlled state legislature—have derailed education progress in our state. The blame belongs squarely on their failed policies and self-serving agendas.
So how do Rep. Himschoot and the gang of 11 justify pushing for universal free education when the very text of the Constitution falls far short of that promise? They don’t. They provide emotional hyperbole with hopes that they can get away with this. They are simply fronting for the public education union and its corrupt special interests, using this inflated promise as a smokescreen to enrich their campaign coffers at our children’s expense.
It is utterly outrageous that these 12 legislators have pocketed over $1 million in 2024 campaign contributions—nearly 25% of which come directly from unions and other special interest groups. And that’s not even counting the additional special interest individual contributions that only further promote these corrupt, self-serving agendas.
The sponsors’ lie is especially problematic given the grim realities: Alaska consistently ranks among the lowest in educational performance nationwide, and it bears the burden of the one of the highest cost per student. Is this sinking in yet?
The sponsor statement continues “Unfortunately, years of flat funding and rising inflation have degraded Alaska’s public education system, resulting in larger class sizes, closed schools, and fewer educational opportunities for children and families.”
Flat funding and rising inflation are not to blame here. The real culprit is the top-down state education policies that force local districts into a cycle of bureaucratic incompetence and mismanagement, breeding an ideology that not only tolerates but actively promotes waste. These misguided state mandates have cascaded down, undermining the quality of education for our children.
In response, House Bill 69 proposes a targeted fix by “inflation proofing” education funding. It aims to raise the Base Student Allocation by $1,808 per student—spread over three years.
If you review the bill, you will notice there are no fiscal notes as of this date. Why? Because the bill is an exercise in mathematical gymnastics designed by the public education union to mislead the public and enrich special interests.
Based on the language of HB 69, I estimate a fiscal note for this bill over a 10-year period adds a total cumulative additional cost of about $3.9 billion to education funding.
This fiscal note reflects the additional state funding required to implement the amendments to AS 14.17.470 under HB, accounting for both the specified fixed increases and the ongoing impact of a 3% annual inflation adjustment. The note assumes a constant student population of 130,000 and does not factor in potential enrollment changes or other economic fluctuations over the period.
While HB 69 attempts to address the fake funding shortfalls—by increasing the BSA and linking it to inflation—the underlying debate is far from resolved. The sponsor’s broad constitutional claim and urgent funding rhetoric mask a more limited mandate: the Constitution guarantees a public school system for children, not an all-encompassing guarantee for every young adult.
Even with these funding increases, the systemic issues—reflected in poor performance outcomes and spiraling per-student costs—remain deeply entrenched. Ultimately, it raises critical questions about whether simply pumping more money into a flawed system can genuinely improve educational outcomes in a state already burdened by inefficiency and high costs.
Thomas Sowell writes in “Charter Schools and Their Enemies”:
“Of course it takes money to run a school. But the great emphasis on money differences as an explanation—or excuse—for differences in educational outcomes ignores the plain fact that the most fundamental things are among the least expensive to teach. Mathematics has been taught for centuries, requiring nothing more expensive than a book, pencil and paper for students, and chalk and a blackboard for teachers. Many “innovative” and “exciting” new gimmicks on tangential projects in schools are likely to be far more expensive. Nevertheless, it remains a common defense of substandard educational outcomes in the traditional unionized public schools to claim that money is the reason—that the schools have ‘inadequate funding’”
The last sentence of their sponsor statement, “Increasing Alaska’s Base Student Allocation and indexing it to inflation will ensure Alaska’s public schools have the resources needed to educate children, so they have the knowledge and skills to succeed in life.”.
This last sentence is nothing short of a tragic betrayal of public trust. It deceptively promises that simply providing more resources will miraculously endow our children with the skills needed for success, all while avoiding the hard truth that increasing the Base Student Allocation does not translate to improved educational performance. By presenting proper funding as a magic solution, it misleads the public into believing that more money alone will fix our broken system, thereby obscuring the critical need for genuine reforms and effective management.
If they were honest, they would instead be proposing legislation which puts education accountability at the district level requiring each district to maintain a superlative level of educational performance and outcome without the chains of power and control exercised by the state bureaucracy and its princelings, bought and paid-for politicians and their special interests.
Between 2021 and 2024, the Alaska Black Caucus went from penniless to getting more than $1.3 million in grants from the Anchorage Assembly. These were noncompetitive grants that no other group had the opportunity to participate in.
The biggest grant came from federal Covid funds, for $1, 023,648 for outreach to the black community and convince people to take the Covid vaccine. The Alaska Black Caucus didn’t have to compete for the grants. They were sole-source contracts.
The non-compete grants continued in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Earlier, the Assembly granted the group over $400,000 to buy a building for its activities.
There were also competitive grants that the Alaska Black Caucus has won over those years, including American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 funds:
Alaska Black Caucus competitive grants
The appropriations have no meaningful deliverables. The Alaska Black Caucus did create a website that contains various news items. In January, the site posted an informational article titled, “Billions of Federal Dollars Come Into Alaska – How does Black Owned Businesses get a piece of the pie?”
In 2021 the Assembly gave the group a piece of the taxpayer’s pie to buy a building and establish “The Equity Center,” which houses the Alaska Black Caucus and serves as a quasi-political headquarters. You can read about it at the group’s newsletter. The Equity Center is the kind of place that could be denied federal grants in 2025, due to the Trump Administration’s stated ban on funding discrimination.
Alaska Black Caucus, which is arguably a surrogate group for the Democrat Party, had disappeared for years, but when the federal money started flowing, the group popped back up and outperformed during the Biden Covid years. The lion’s share of the funding comes from federal taxpayers and future taxpayers who will owe these funds that the US government borrowed from bonds and took through taxes. Celeste Hodge Growden, the organization’s CEO, makes $72,500.
It appears the organization will require ongoing federal and municipal support to stay viable, however. Life support for the Alaska Black Caucus will come this year from the Anchorage Mayor’s Community Grants program; the application period for this year’s money opened Feb. 11 and closes on March 10. Mayor Suzanne LaFrance will be giving out $315,000 in taxpayer money to organizations that support her policy priorities.
Federal dollars may be harder to get, however, since the organization is discriminatory by nature, filling the “diversity, equity, inclusion” programming that is now eliminated from federal spending.
The man known as Jack LaSota, or by the nickname “Ziz,” or the name Andrea Phelps was ordered to be held without bail in a Maryland jail after being arrested in Frostburg, Maryland on Sunday.
LaSota, 33, along with Michelle Zajko, 32, and Daniel Blank, 26 were arrested on Sunday afternoon after they parked a box truck on private property. They appeared to be armed. The owner became concerned and called police.
Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank booking photos, Allegany County Detention Center.
The charges themselves don’t seem serious enough to warrant behind held without bail, but nevertheless the judge said LaSota is a flight risk and a danger to public safety.
Prosecutor James Elliott of Allegany County’s State Attorney’s Office, said LaSota “appears to be the leader of a violent group known as Zizians.”
The group is connected to six murders in California, Vermont, and Pennsylvania, including a shootout that took the life of a border patrol officer in Vermont on Jan. 20 and the life of another person.
Elliott described to the judge how LaSota had once faked his own death by supposedly falling overboard in San Francisco Bay. His Fairbanks, Alaska parents had him declared dead. He appeared later in connection with a brutal attack on an elderly man in California. Later, that man was murdered.
In 2023, Pennsylvania police found LaSota, Zajko, and Blank in a hotel room near the Philadelphia airport while police were investigating a double homicide of Zajko’s parents. Police testified that during the arrest LaSota acted comatose, “had eyes closed…would not speak…was just laying almost unconscious or as if dead on the ground…had to be carried out.”
On June 22, 2023, LaSota’s bail was lowered to an unsecured bond of $10,000. He would only owe the money if he failed to appear. His attorney promised the judge that LaSota’s mother “will take him home and make sure he comes back for all the court dates.” But LaSota did not appear for his December 2023 trial, which led to a warrant being issued.
At Tuesday’s hearing, LaSota said he has done nothing wrong and asked the judge for pretrial release. He claimed he is homeless and has no money to travel. He also requested a vegan diet while in jail and said he would starve if not given one and that he was already suffering from delirium due to lack of food, according to the Associated Press.
As of Sunday, he is prisoner No. 57555 at the Allegeny County Detention Centers, facing three charges: Trespassing on private property, possession of a handgun in a vehicle, and obstructing and hindering. The other two transgenders are held as well, although it’s unclear if it is in the women’s section of the prison, or the men’s section.
Rebecca Francoeur-Breeden is the public defender representing LaSota and the other two being held. According to the Associated Press, she said she had spoken with LaSota’s mother twice since LaSota was arrested and the attorney noted that LaSota is a very intelligent person.
LaSota had a blog, “Sinceriously Fresh, tasty knowledge of good and evil” that can still be read at theinternet archives, at this link. He stopped writing his blog just before he faked his death.
Also with Northwest ties, Zajko, who is the person of interest in the 2022 double homicide of his parents, is alleged to have provided the guns that were used in the shootout with border patrol agent David Maland last month.
With Youngblut in the car was a German national with an expired immigration visa, Felix Bauckholt, who was also killed during the shootout. Youngblut has pled not guilty and is being held without bail.
A U.S. appeals court has put an end to former President Joe Biden’s SAVE plan, which made taxpayers pay for student loan debt taken out by college students.
The decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in St. Louis said that Biden went beyond his authority when he ordered the Department of Education to forgive loans outright.
The lawsuit was brought by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, and Ohio. This was the third legal challenge of Biden’s illegal attempts to work around the law and force some $450 billion in student loans onto Americans who did not sign for those loans.
“We obtained another court order BLOCKING an illegal Biden-era student loan scheme,” Bailey wrote on X on Tuesday. “Though [Biden] is out of office, this precedent is imperative to ensuring a President cannot force working Americans to foot the bill for someone else’s Ivy League debt. HUGE win.”
“The Secretary has gone well beyond this authority by designing a plan where loans are largely forgiven rather than repaid,” the court wrote.
Now that Donald Trump is back in the White House, it is unlikely the Department of Education will appeal the ruling.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s staff earned an average of $92,454 in 2024, which is 33% higher than the average Senate staff member, according to Legistorm, a website that tracks congressional staff movements.
Murkowski’s staff earns more than any other staff in the Senate, the website reported. Sen. Dan Sullivan’s staff only earns 13% more than the average.
Legistorm reports that staff members for Florida’s two U.S. senators anchor the bottom of the pay scale, earning 22.4% less than the Senate average.
Former Sen. Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, paid the lowest average salary of any senator, with his staff earning $45,000 on average, 35% below the chamber average and less than half what Murkowski pays her staff.
Murkowski has said she does not agree with President Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce government, saying on the record that reducing federal expenses is fine but he is not going about it the right way; she did not offer a suggestion about what the right way would be.
Earlier this week she indicated on X that cuts to a few dozen federal forestry and park jobs in Alaska will do more harm than good.
As debates over the state’s funding of the Base Student Allocation suck the oxygen out of the education committee rooms, there are a few education-related bills worth looking at.
A couple of good ones are from staunch conservative Rep. Jamie Allard. A few surprisingly good ones are from liberal-to-center-left legislators. Then there are the requisite woke bills from staunch liberal Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson.
SAVE GIRLS’ SPORTS. House Bill 40 is Eagle River Rep. Allard’s repeat attempt at getting girls’ sports reserved for girls – real girls and only real girls. Her bill passed the House in the final days of the last session, but the Democrat-controlled Senate didn’t do anything with it. To be fair, they had very little time to do anything with it, but the time crunch provided an excellent excuse not to consider it. Fear not, Allard has – rightfully so – introduced it again.
President Donald Trump championed this cause successfully during his 2024 presidential campaign, and polls reflect a clear majority of Americans are for keeping guys out of girls’ sports. Despite the recent actions taken by the president and U.S. House of Representatives, our state still needs a law to ensure the safety of our female athletes and the continued success of girls’ and women’s sports. If nothing else, floor votes will identify those legislators who either support girls’ sports or think it’s okay for female impersonators to compete against true females.
IT’S A GRAND OL’ FLAG.House Bill 45is another Rep. Allard bill. This time, she has the radical notion that the American flag should be displayed at all state buildings and inside each schoolroom. Under this bill, the American flag shall have prominence when displayed, meaning no other flag will fly higher than the stars-and-stripes. Additionally, this bill will prohibit government entities from displaying flags that represent political viewpoints, including matters concerning race, sexual orientation, or gender. In other words, gender-bending teachers who seek to indoctrinate students with pride flags of various color schemes won’t be allowed to do so.
By the way, it’s been a heyday for capitalist-minded flag makers because, according to the Human Rights Campaign, there are now 25 different flags to represent the ever growing list of alternative lifestyles and sexual preferences. Going out on a limb here and assuming the people waving these multi-colored flags tend to be the same folks who cheer when an American flag is set on fire or an athlete makes a stand by kneeling for the red-white-and-blue, it is ironic to see such importance placed on cloth representations. Here’s just a smattering of the different flags now available:
Pride
Philadelphia Pride
Progress Pride
Lesbian
Bisexual
Pansexual
Intersex
Asexual
Nonbinary
Genderqueer
Gender-fluid
NO PHONES IN SCHOOL. House Bill 57 would prohibit the use of cell phones in public schools during regular school hours. It was introduced by Rep. Zack Fields, a Democrat from Anchorage. Senate Bill 18 is a companion bill introduced in the Senate by Anchorage Democrat Sen. Bill Wielechowski. Fields and Wielechowski aren’t exactly middle of the road politicians, but these bills make sense and deserve support. Removing cell phones from school grounds will eliminate distractions for students and teachers alike, and will promote a better learning environment.
Author’s unsolicited trip down memory lane . . . As kids, some of us used to stuff a transistor radio in our jacket or pants pockets and run a wired earpiece through our clothes so we could surreptitiously listen to postseason baseball broadcasts during school. This only occurred over a few days in October, and while it bordered on disrespectful and villainous, it was often done with a wink from the teacher. In fact, on one occasion, Miss Sciapiti, our easy-on-the-eyes sixth grade home room teacher and the first crush for many of us boys at John Muir Elementary School, told me to take out my earpiece and turn off my radio . . . and then had the play-by-play piped in through the intercom so the whole class could hear. That was it – I was smitten.
We, obviously, couldn’t do all the things with transistor radios that teachers have to put up with these days; i.e., make phone calls, watch videos, exchange text messages, or record videos. After all, those transistors only received AM radio signals. Today’s teachers have to put up with many distractions and distracted students. Taking away the biggest sources of those distractions makes sense.
LEARNING ABOUT MONEY.Senate Bill 22 is another bill introduced by Sen. Wielechowski, and it makes sense, as it mandates a financial literacy course for all high school students. All people are going to have to deal with opening bank accounts, paying bills, and balancing checkbooks. This is pragmatic learning, and well worth our teenagers’ time to learn about banking, savings, investing, budgeting, and filing for student aid; and with credit debt at an all-time high, we can nary afford to continue ignoring this unavoidable part of life.
CIVICS CLASS MAKING A COMEBACK. Senate Bill 23, introduced Senate President Gary Stevens of Kodiak, a registered Republican who caucuses with the Democrats, is another piece of common sense education legislation. It includes topics that really should already be taught in our public schools including: founding of the United States, including foundational documents and the principles of government; federalism; the three branches of government; civil liberties and rights; campaigns and elections; domestic and foreign policy; comparative governments; and international relations.
That these topics are not being taught in our public schools is a tragedy. As long as credit is being given to the likes of Fields, Wielechowski, and Stevens, we might as well heed the commentary of another unlikely source: legendary musician and nonconformist, Frank Zappa, who had this to say about the dire state of constitutional knowledge and citizen awareness:
“One of the things taken out of the curriculum was civics. Civics was a class that used to be required before you could graduate from high school. You were taught what was in the U.S. Constitution. And after all the student rebellions in the Sixties, civics was banished from the student curriculum and was replaced by something called social studies. Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government – nobody knows what’s in it . . .”
So, now that we’ve have reached across the philosophical and political ire to give credit where credit is due, it’s time to go after the bills that will not improve our schools.
Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson of Anchorage is as nice a person as there is in the Legislature, but she is also one of the most liberal, and she seeks to spread her brand of wokeness by introducing a few unnecessary bills – and one potentially dangerous bill, such as:
ASIAN/PACIFIC ISLANDER CURRICULUM.Senate Bill 6 will require the inclusion of lessons on the history and contributions of Asian/Pacific Islanders to students in kindergarten through 12th grade. This adds another layer of non-basic educational requirements that already keep our students from concentrating on core subjects and pragmatic lessons.
Now, before you start hurling racist epithets at me, please know that my wife is of Japanese, Okinawan, and Filipina heritage and was born and raised in Hawaii. You can’t get much more Asian/Pacific Islander than that, and it means that the people I love and care for most – my wife and the five children we raised together – are Asian/Pacific Islander (and the kids get to throw in Slovak ethnicity as well). We made sure they learned of their varied, rich, and diverse heritages because that’s part of who they are . . . and it makes for some interesting mealtimes: chicken adobo and haluski, miso soup and stuffed cabbage.
MANDATORY CPR TRAINING.Senate Bill 20 calls for mandatory CPR training for public school students. While not necessarily a bad thing, it becomes another state-mandated curriculum requirement that takes valuable school hours away from core subjects. It is my understanding that training of this nature is already available to any student who wants it.
MENTAL HEALTH EDUCATION. Senate Bill 41 is something of a rehash of Sen. Gray-Jackson’s previous attempts at making mental health education a part of the public school curriculum. It sounds rather innocuous, but the mandatory lessons it dictates will be crafted by state-level bureaucrats and there is a wide swath down which the topic of mental health can travel if this bill becomes law.
Giving education bureaucrats the authority to develop mental health guidelines for children is a dangerous proposition, as we have all seen what leftist idealogues do develop curriculum. It opens the door for topics such as racism, equity, sexuality, and gender to creep their way into public schools under the guise of mental health.
Tim Barto is vice president of Alaska Family Council and a regular contributor to Must Read Alaska.
In my commentary of Dec 22, 2024 in Must Read Alaska I stated, “Now is the time to remove the impediments to progress in oil and gas development in Alaska so our Cook Inlet natural gas production will become popular again, and increased production of oil from the North Slope can once again be a major focus for our efforts.
That is where our economy will be built and which will ensure our ability to put forth balanced budgets in the future, while still providing full Permanent Fund dividends to our citizens.”
On Nov 24, 2024 my commentary included “Instead of only considering raiding the dividend, why not consider long-term finances for the State of Alaska? I think a priority for this legislative session is to work on encouraging, incentivizing and enabling legislation to ensure active interest in any lease sales which might be arranged in the near future.
One of the most important objectives for Alaska to work on at this time is to get increased oil flow in the Trans Alaska Pipeline, with a goal of a million barrels a day or more so that we can have assured revenue sufficient to fund the necessary items of the annual budget well into the future. The way to ensure a balanced budget with the least hassle is to ensure future revenues. Oil and gas are the best revenue sources we have.”
If we can get some short timeline projects in the works that can get some additional crude oil into the Trans Alaska Pipeline while the longer term projects are being developed, would help Alaska fiscally. “North to the Future” won’t work if there are not some positive actions towards economic development through our extractive industries.
SB 92 or the “Yundt Tax” offered by Wasilla freshman Sen. Rob. Yundt is definitely an action that will hinder desire for oil producers to invest in increased oil production for Alaska. The uncertain tax on oil and gas producers is much of what drove the major oil companies away. Now is time to encourage oil and gas production as well as mining and timber.
We need elected officials who find ways to reinvigorate our industries which have been sabotaged by unnecessary environmental constraints that have halted oil production projects which could have kept the coffer full. Alaska is not warming two to three times faster than the rest of world, as I have pointed out a number of times.
Then for another boost for Alaska, do whatever it takes to get more gas wells drilled in Cook Inlet. There is enough gas to last maybe another 200 years. The lowest cost way forward for energy in the immediate future is to poke holes into the Kitchen Light Unit. And then at least get the gas pipeline from the North Slope to Fairbanks so we can reduce the wood burning in the interior and maybe build a natural gas fueled power plant in Fairbanks to feed the Railbelt Electric System from the Northern end. We need energy, high density energy, which can be there year round.
Robert Seitz, is a professional electrical engineer and longtime Alaskan.
The Trump Administration is ending the Biden-era bans on incandescent light bulbs and household appliances.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced Friday that the Department of Energy will delay the implementation of seven restrictive home appliance regulations introduced by the Biden Administration.
Secretary Wright said the decision aligns with President Donald Trump’s commitment to easing financial burdens on American households.
“A top priority for President Trump is lowering costs for American families,” Wright stated. “Today’s announcement will foster consumer choice and lower prices – it is a win for all Americans. The people, not the government, should be choosing the home appliances and products they want at prices they can afford.”
The postponed efficiency standards impact the following categories of home appliances:
Central Air Conditioners
Clothes Washers and Dryers
General Service Lamps
Walk-In Coolers and Freezers
Gas Instantaneous Water Heaters
Commercial Refrigeration Equipment
Air Compressors
Additionally, the Energy department is introducing a new energy efficiency category specifically for natural gas tankless water heaters. This adjustment exempts these appliances from the previous administration’s stringent efficiency rules, giving consumers greater flexibility in choosing cost-effective options for their homes.
Under Biden, New non-condensing, natural gas-fired water heaters would be prohibited for sale starting in 2029.
The decision is part of a broader effort by the Trump Administration to roll back regulations that many economists say have led to increased prices and reduced appliance performance.
The DOE’s actions were announced alongside a parallel initiative by the Environmental Protection Agency to revise all Biden-era “WaterSense” specifications that curtailed through regulation bathroom and kitchen faucets, residential toilets, and sprinkler nozzles.
