Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who blamed a Department of Energy (DOE) official for his non-functioning toilet a month ago, sees new government efficiency standards as something out of an Ayn Rand novel.
“You restrict my purchases, you don’t care about my choices, you don’t care about the consumer frankly, you raise the cost of the all the items with all your rules, all your notions that you know what’s best for me,” Paul said to DOE Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hogan at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on March 10th.
“Frankly, my toilets don’t work in my house. And I blame you and people like you who want to tell me what I can install in my house, what I can do. You restrict my choices, there is hypocrisy.”
The irony is that the toilet law in question was passed by a strongly GOP controlled Congress, with more dissenting votes coming from Democratic Senators than from GOP Senators.
Anyway, here’s a wonderful column by Peggy Noonan, with the basic theme of “physician, heal thyself.”
(unrelated to toilets)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704071704576277432098870832.html
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Sorry, Larry…. got to correct your fact finding.
Lo flush toilets were part of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, passed in May 1992 under Dem controlled Congress in both chambers, and signed into law by HW Bush…. which was yet another strike against him for me.
It was introduced by a Dem, with 54 co-sponsors, only five of which were GOP. In the house vote, 23 GOP voted nay and 14 Dems voted nay. In the aye column, 243 Dems voted yea, and 134 voted yea.
In the Senate, also majority held by Dems 56 to 44, the vote was 55 Dems and 38 GOP yea, to 2 GOP nays and 1 Dem nay.
Therefore your “irony” is incorrect on many counts. There were not more “dissenting” Dem votes than GOP in either chamber, nor was either chamber held by “a strongly GOP controlled” majority. The best ya got is that Bush the elder made a serious faux pas in signing it into law. He paid for that, and many other errors, months later…. driving a ton of us to “neither of the above”, and a prescient tea party platform, pre tea party.
@Mata: You are partly correct and I was partly wrong. You are correct that the bill was signed by George HW Bush in 1992 and passed by a Dem controlled congress. I thought it was passed and signed in 1993. I remembered this from an earlier time when this came up on F/A, last winter.
But, number one, the bill passed with huge bipartisan majorities. In the House, the vote was 239 Dems “Aye” and 20 Dems “Nay,” vs 123 GOP votes “Aye” and 40 votes “Nay.” In the Senate, the final bill was filibustered. The following were the votes against cloture (i.e. votes in favor of the filibuster):
Bryan D NV
Chafee (R RI)
Durenberger (R-MN)
Graham (D FL)
Moynihan (D NY)
Reid (D NV)
Shelby (R AL)
Graham (D FL)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d102:HR00776:@@@X
When cloture passed, the final bill was approved by the Senate by voice (not roll call) vote and went to Bush for the signature.
With respect to the law itself, regarding its intent to conserve water, the low flush toilets do work to do that. If one lives in the Great Lakes area, or some other locale with plentiful water resources, I suppose that there would be a degree of annoyance. Rand Paul lives near by the Ohio River.
Anyway, on a positive note, I will take the liberty of commercializing Curt’s blog and give a plug to Toto toilets. These are brilliantly effective, low flow toilets. They NEVER plug up and NEVER require a second flush to clear the excreta. e.g. They are durable and 100% reliable and NEVER leak. Japanese import, of course.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Larry, I remember the year since I heard about it on a road trip to Colorado in 1992. But even if you thought it was passed and signed in 1993, it still would have been a Dem controlled Congress (they didn’t take both chambers until the 1994 midterms), and it would have then been signed into law by a POTUS Clinton.
I gave you the specific vote results for both chambers and the links. There was no doubt that the GOP was firmly on board with this, and I give them no applause for doing so. But on that note, I will say that my Toto toilets are not only inexpensive, but work reasonably well for at least leaving the bowl. Doesn’t do much when it doesn’t move it down the lines with as much force, or further. So the problem is sorta a “kick the can down the road”, or perhaps more accurately put as “pushing the clog further down the sewer or septic line”.
Nor is the issue such high priority that I would spend time discussing the reality of water conservation, or not.
@Mata: Of course, you are right (and I was wrong) about the year that the GOP took control of Congress. How did I forget 1994? Anyway, the disparity between your citation of the Senate votes, vis a vis mine, are, I think, that you were referring to the Senate vote, before it went to House/Senate committee, and I was referring to the final Senate vote on the bill which emerged from committee.
It’s sort of weird to think that there are probably moments in time when we are using the same … hardware.
Not to belabor a genuinely unimportant point, Larry… but no… the link I put in was the final tallies for both chambers’ passage of the bill…. a much larger endeavor than reconciliation post passage. So how about I give you the link again to HR 776 in 1992. The bill originated in the House, passed in the House via the roll call votes I cited in May 1992, and passed in the Senate with some changes by roll call vote in July 1992.
The reconciliation vote, which is probably what you are referring to with your Senate voice vote, was in Oct by both chambers. For a short cut to the less than important… here’s a link to all 19 votes held on the House bill that became law. Then you can read the specific amendments that caused whatever consternation what elected ones felt. But the big stuff was done by the end of summer. After that, it was just deciding what color ink to use, so to speak.
POTUS election was, of course, just a month later, and another ugly memory of Bush (and the GOP) for conservatives. You might say that, with or without Perot’s presence, Bush got flushed along with the energy policy he signed into law.
You should know me well enough by now to figure that we often use the same “hardware”…. we just come out with different conclusions after the use.
@MataHarley: >>> Nor is the issue such high priority that I would spend time discussing the reality of water conservation, or not.
I have a home built in 1994 with TWO of the “low flush” toilets. We call them All Gore Crappers.
If, in fact, one only needed to flush to clear the bowl, then there would be some water saving. However, often several flushes are required, making my Water Expenditure as much or more than traditional toilets for solid removal.
Wouldn’t it have been simpler and cheaper to just give every household in the USA a brick (to put in the tank) for each toilet in each home?
More Tree Hugger/Feel Good legislation with no eye towards Unintended Consequences.
Or,
They may love Bambi and Flipper, but they don’t really know much about shit.
P.S.: The Toto Drake is the wizard solution, but if your job’s gone to China, it’s hard to buy a Japanese toilet.
Alfonso… LOL. Yup, both the knowledge base and nickname are probably pretty well deserved. I have to confess, my larger annoyance about the 1992 legislation was the virtual elimination of the more efficient top loading washers, and larger move to the front loaders. They do make top loaders, but they are, like toilets, “low flush”, so to speak. The front load washers are more expensive to repair, more prone to break down. I had to wonder if Congress had stock in washer repair drums.
@Alfonso Bedoya, #6:
Consider the American Standard Cadet 3. It’s efficient and does the job, assuming you don’t eat more than 20 golf balls at a time. It’s not an expensive fixture.
@M: Thanks for the corrections and clarifications.
L/HB
@Greg: Perhaps I can find a, “Loaner,” and try it out The Morning After an, “All You Can Eat Burritoes,” Friday night at Tomas’ House of Ptomaine.
leave your computer on your bathroom sink so that you can know what’s going on in the world, while taking care of business, that’s my advice. That way you can read during the day, every time. Call it using software while on the hardware. Its where I respond from; The best seat in the house.
The argument in the above posting is really quite simple, and none of the extra-curricular commentary has any bearing on it. The legislation was passed as a means to LIMIT one’s water usage. Now, this might be important in such areas as the west, where water shortages do happen, but in a majority of the country, the option of increasing the supply, by expanding their current water purification plants, would make more sense.
As it is, it just shows another overreach by a federal government run amuck, and this was back in 92′. Given the varying climes amongst the states, and sometimes within a state itself(California, for example), this issue should have been left to the states themselves to decide what to do. A state like Indiana, or Ohio, for example, would never have passed legislation like that, while in a state like Arizona, or Nevada, it might have been necessary. Regardless of your own personal thoughts on ‘low-flow’ toilets, whether you think they are great, or think they are a pain, the federal government overstepped it’s bounds by limiting choices such as they did.
Agreed John Galt. Never saw anything about toilets in the constitution, it does say we have the right to bare arms and I assume have the right to bare a$$. This toilet issue may cause quite a splash in the future. Let’s hope the media does not flush the issue.
*sorry everyone, I just couldn’t hold it in any longer.
In this day of expanding modern technology
We tend to forget, those old guys knew their crap
To limit the amount of sewer water is dandy
If plenty of water being used through other traps
You see hidden sewer lines are set at a slight decline
On the premise that, “crap flows downhill”
Truer words, yet to be spoken, but nature draws a line
In the heat of summer, temps hot as Hell
Loyal customers make a last minute deposit
Of spurious contribution to the humble white bank
And with a deft push sends said loot on to debit
Without thought of the journey from bank to tank
Later, said depositor is engaged in more mundane activities
But hard earned deposit lacks the momentum and lube of water
To complete the journey and join its brethern in stinky bliss
There it sits, in a tunnel without vision, alone and becoming drier
Until, it is but a hard lifeless shell of its former self
Sticking to its new plastic home like the finest glue
Vowing not to move and to stop passage of all humble wealth
From that day on, deposits without adequate water will haunt you
For nature doesn’t break its own laws of physics
Only the fools of congress engage in this risky business
Nature’s two laws of banking at the throne of white porcelain
Won’t be denied despite congressional stupidity and insolence
You may rest assured that crap finds its own level
Don’t follow fools, lest ye be prepared to meet the devil
Zac , I could have swear you where coming with one of those funnys, getting to know you better.!!!!
!!! SKOOKUM, It take you to mustard a POEM ,!!! about crap, the first ever done and well done to preserved
[the POEM ] not the crap. I happen to have an old one that never failed,
BYE
Skookum:
let ye waste flow with haste and, ye bowl runnith over!
For a poet in good taste, is worse than no toilet water.
Bees, Skook is a wizard!