President Trump would have us believe he's struck a blow for middle America by banning weak showers, multiple toilet flushes and soggy straws, rescinding a 33-year-old federal requirement for water-saving appliances and a Biden policy against the government’s use of throwaway plastics.

Federal involvement in our plumbing and drinking devices is an easy target for anti-woke warriors. However, Trump’s response is a case of misdirected mocking. Water waste and plastics pollution are serious national problems.

Let’s start with water. It is a finite resource. It circulates through the planet as a liquid, solid or gas, but the amount is constant. About 97 percent is saltwater. Of the 3 percent that’s potable, only one-hundredth of 1percent is available for human uses like drinking, cooking, growing crops and, yes, showering and flushing toilets.

The American Society of Civil Engineers points out that parts of the U.S. are critically short of clean water, and the problem is spreading. Fresh water is so scarce that some municipalities are treating sewer water to make it drinkable, calling the process “toilet to tap.”

A New York Times investigation concluded two years ago that "aquifers are shrinking nationwide, threatening supplies of drinking water and America's status as a food superpower." The newspaper reported that "America is depleting its invaluable reserves of groundwater at a dangerous rate," with 45 percent of water wells experiencing significant supply declines since 1980. Last year, researchers discovered that

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