In a turn of events that’s par for the course in American politics in 2024, House Republicans were forced to ditch plans to wage a legislative war on “woke” home appliances this week and pivoted their attention, instead, to shoring up unwavering support for Israel.
This week, GOP lawmakers had originally planned to hold what they were calling “Appliance Week.” This legislative theme week would have involved a series of hearings on bills designed to defeat environmental regulations that were recently introduced by the Biden administration. See, Biden’s Secretary of Energy, Jennifer M. Granholm, recently rolled out new energy-efficient standards for home appliances—like freezers, dishwashers, and air conditioners—that she says will help drastically reduce U.S. carbon emissions over a period of 30 years while also saving Americans billions on their utility bills.
Of course, Republicans wanted no part in that and recently set about introducing a number of bills designed to protest Granholm’s regulations. All of the bills are basically the same, albeit aimed at different home appliances. There’s the Liberty in Laundry Act, the Refrigerator Freedom Act, the Affordable Air Conditioning Act, the Clothes Dryer Reliability Act, and, finally, the Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards, or SUDS, Act. These bills, which are designed to counteract energy conservation standards that are not, in Republican’s words, “cost-effective or technologically feasible,” have been dubbed “messaging bills”—meaning they have little chance of actually passing and are designed to virtue signal to their base.
Unfortunately for the GOP lawmakers who authored this legislation, world events appear to have forced them to temporarily abandon their crusade against energy conservation. Instead, they’ve now been forced to head to much more politically familiar stomping ground: giving unwavering and unconditional support to Israel. Fox News journalist Chad Pergram tweeted Monday that House Republicans were abandoning their “original plan for ‘appliance week’ and putting 17 bills on the floor ‘to hammer’ Iran or show support for Israel.”
That so-called hammering will involve a slew of “tough-on-Iran” bills that have been fast-tracked to the House floor, Politico reports. The Israel-focused legislation seeks to bolster support for the nation as it wages a bloody war on Hamas and becomes increasingly embroiled in regional aggression. Iran struck Israel with airstrikes on Sunday, in response to a suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria that occurred several weeks ago, CNN reports.
