Congress Needs a Flush

by Marc Levin

Have you ever been forced to engage in the putrid task of plunging a fully loaded toilet? Believe it or not, the federal government and the environmental lobby may be to blame for this common misery shared by millions of Americans.

A 1992 federal regulation forces toilet manufacturers to reduce the water level in toilets from 3.5 gallons to 1.6 gallons. While this requirement—pushed by environmental activists—may have been intended to save water, it terribly inconveniences the public and may waste more water than it saves.

After receiving countless letters from constituents complaining about government intrusion into their bathrooms, the Republican Congress, which regularly promises less government, had a chance to put its words into action.

On April 12, however, liberal Republican Representatives Michael Bilirakis of Florida and Heather Wilson of New Mexico voted in committee to dump a bill that would have repealed the 1992 toilet water cap. Since all eleven Democrats on the committee joined these two renegade Republicans, the amendment, offered by Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R-Michigan), was defeated 13-12.

Perhaps Americans stuck with plunging their toilets could find solace in the smelly situation if the toilet policy were really saving our water supply. Sadly, that's not the case. One can only imagine how much water is wasted when the toilet must be flushed several times to remove residues or overflows after being clogged because of insufficient water pressure.

Ray Aranda, proprietor of Aranda's Plumbing and Heating Supply, Inc. in New Mexico, has been in the plumbing business for 50 years. Regarding the low water pressure toilets, he says, “There are just a few good ones that were accepted by Consumer Reports, and the rest that were supposedly 1.6 weren't satisfying the people. The government has no business in the first place in the potty business.”

At Coronado Wrecking and Salvage Company in Albuquerque, a salesman who would not provide his name verified that there's still a strong demand for the older models: “Most people say, when they come in, that you have to flush the new ones twice or three times before they do the job so they're not saving any water anyway.”

Indeed, the performance of the low water pressure toilets is so dismal that there is a burgeoning black market for the old, higher-capacity commodes. While Canadians often flee to the United States to escape the rationing of Canada's Soviet-style health care system, many Americans willingly pay a premium for high water pressure toilets smuggled across the border.

In truth, there is no need for such mandates. While there is a public interest in promoting water conservation, there is not a crisis requiring the kind of federal government coercion embodied in the toilet policy.

Water management, surely, is best addressed at the state and local level.

Conservation can be encouraged by charging users more per gallon of water after they reach a certain threshold. Such an approach assures that the poor will not be forced to pay more for necessary water while providing an incentive for all users to cut back on nonessential uses such as excessive lawn watering. Citizens would thus be able to choose the most convenient area in which to reduce water consumption. Some may choose a low water pressure toilet, but no one is forced into a one-size-fits-all government solution.

Best of all, advances in technology may avert any future water crisis by increasing the supply. Great progress has been made in water purification devices that turn salty or contaminated water into water suitable for drinking, bathing, and certainly flushing. Such devices are widely used in Saudi Arabia and on U.S. Navy ships.

Finally, although it is not surprising that liberal environmental groups—Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club—have pushed for this regulation, the lobbying of public entities on this issue is particularly disturbing. The American Water Works Association, the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, as well as many municipalities are using taxpayer dollars to pressure Congress to keep the intrusive toilet policy in place.

The use of taxpayer funds by one level of government to lobby another is a separate scandal that needs to be addressed, but it is especially appalling that this publicly-funded influence-peddling is undermining the grassroots efforts of average Americans on this issue.

While the question of weak toilets may seem trivial, the controversy is another disturbing example of counterproductive mandates flushed on the American people by busybody politicians and environmental extremists. Although most Republicans supported the effort to repeal the regulation, the issue remains symptomatic of a Republican Congress that has often failed to deliver on its promises to reduce government involvement in the lives of Americans.

Since Congress has refused to take the plunge, Americans must vote this year not only with their wallets, but with their toilets. Then we'll have a Congress that is potty trained in the traditional American values of limited government and individual freedom.