President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday "we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms," including low flow toilets.
"People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once. They end up using more water. So, EPA is looking at that very strongly, at my suggestion," he said, referring to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Trump made the comments at a White House roundtable on small business and red tape reduction, where he complained about modern bathrooms.
"We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on, in areas where there's tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it, and you don't get any water. You turn on the faucet; you don't get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. It's dripping out — very quietly dripping out," he told reporters.
"You go into a new building or a new house or a new home, and they have standards, 'Oh, you don’t get water.' You can't wash your hands, practically, there's so little water comes out of the faucet. And the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your hands. You end up using the same amount of water," he continued.
"So we're looking at, very seriously, at opening up the standard. And there may be some areas where we'll go the other route — desert areas But for the most part, you have many states where they have so much water that it comes down — it's called rain — that they don't know, they don't know what to do with it. So we're going to be opening up that, I believe. And we're looking at changing the standards very soon."
He had other gripes as well, including complaining, as he has before, about energy-efficient light bulbs.
"They got rid of the light bulb that people got used to. The new bulb is many times more expensive. And I hate to say it, it doesn't make you look as good. Of course, being a vain person, that's very important to me," he said to laughs from the attendees. "It gives you an orange look. I don't want an orange look."
His administration announced in September it was rolling back requirements for energy-efficient bulbs.
"You'll be able to buy light bulbs that actually are better lighting, in the opinion of many — and, I tell you, in my opinion," he said. "We're using common sense."
