Okay, listen. Donald Trump has signed a lot of executive orders (EOs). As of the writing of this article, he was up to 124 in less than four months. And as someone who is tracking these so closely that my search bar auto-fills a hyperlink to the White House page cataloguing executive orders when I simply type the letters “pre,” it’s been stressful. These are coming out so quickly, I can barely keep up with them anymore. But we need to talk about EO 14264.
EO 14264 is immediately eye-catching by its name, “Maintaining Acceptable Water Pressure in Shower-heads.” I can’t make this up. It literally looks like Trump just wanted a stronger water pressure coming from the showers and so he wrote a whole EO for it.
The language is, admittedly, a bit more nuanced. Not much, but a bit. It says that it repeals the language in 86 Fed Reg. 71797 and 10 CFR 430.32(p) (part of the Code of Federal Regulations) that creates a definition of “shower-head” over 13,000 words long. It does this in the name of reducing regulation to improve the competitiveness of businesses, ensuring a more common-sense definition of “shower-head.”
Here’s the thing. It’s a couple of things, actually. 10 CFR 430.32(p) does not define “shower-head.” It provides energy and water use efficiency standards for shower-heads. This is also well under 13,000 words. 86 Fed Reg. also does not define shower-head. It describes the federal review and comment process that reviewed and ultimately modified the definition of “shower-head,” but doesn’t state product specifications directly. Put a pin in that. This one was almost 15,000 words though, so I assume this is where he got the word count.
The actual definition of “shower-head” is in 42 USC Chapter 77 Subchapter III Part A Sec. 6291.32(D). And I know this because I actually looked it up. Here it is: “The term ‘shower-head’ means any shower-head (including a handheld shower-head), except a safety shower shower-head.” That’s it. That’s the entire definition. In a different area of federal code than either cited sources, and roughly 12,985 words shorter than it was supposed to be. When I said “insane,” I wasn’t talking about the weirdness of writing an entire EO over water pressure. I was talking about its total detachment from reality.
But I didn’t write this just to fact-check Trump. I don’t have the energy or patience for that. I wrote this because of this phrase in the EO: “Notice and comment is unnecessary because [Trump is] ordering the repeal.” Remember that pin from earlier? Let’s take that back out. In 86 Fed Reg. 71797, there were 28 distinct stages of comment and review that made it into the final, published document. These included 11 stages of review under relevant laws and EOs, Congressional notification, public comment and review, and an official approval request. And it’s this way because that’s what federal agencies are required to publish comment periods to ensure decisions are not unilateral. For more information, go watch either video of John Oliver versus the Federal Communications Commission.
This was a unilateral decision outside of express policies and regulations to make a change at the whims of the president. I know that Trump trying to consolidate powers is not new. But this one is uniquely cut and dry. We have the nearly 15,000-word cited document showing how this could have been handled. And we have the much shorter EO that subverts that. This EO may seem frivolous compared to everything that has been happening, and in many ways it is. It’s the way it uniquely is, both aware of how things are supposed to be done while shamelessly and flagrantly violating it, that stands out.