The lowly clothesline is making a comeback. Spurred by growing concerns over global warming and the recognition that mechanical clothes dryers can consume a whopping 10 percent of household energy, concerned citizens are hanging out their clothes in increasing numbers.

But the growing air drying movement is at odds with the vast majority of community associations, which ban clotheslines out of the strongly-held believe that they adversely affect property values.

How the struggle between the two opposing forces will play out remains to be seen. Lawsuits over clotheslines have sprung up all over the country and the issue has attracted the attention of politicians.

In Florida and Utah "Right to Dry" legislation that overturns clothesline bans has already been passed, and here in New England two similar bills are in the works.

In New Hampshire, a Right to Dry bill is being drafted by State Rep. Suzanne Harvey (D — Nashua Ward 2, District 21). The bill, to be considered by the full state legislature in 2008, would reverse existing bans against clotheslines and may have language requiring multi-families to provide space for drying, says Harvey.

In Vermont, state Senator Richard McCormack (D-Windsor) is planning to reintroduce a Right to Dry bill for that state's 2008 legislative calendar. Last year, an energy bill that contained outdoor drying language was vetoed by the state's governor, who was not so much against clotheslines as the larger energy issues in the bill, says McCormack.

Both the New Hampshire and Vermont bills will contain sections that will take into account community aesthetics and property values, says Alexander Lee, founder and executive director of Project Laundry List, Inc., a non-profit based in Concord, New Hampshire, that promotes air drying. In addition to considering drying racks and specially-designated drying areas Lee says air dryers can also use the old trick of "hanging the dainties — the underwear and what not — on the inside of the sheets and towels."

Opposition to clotheslines involves more than prudery and goes back to decades-old perceptions that they are synonymous with poverty.

When Meg Wilcox of Newton, Massachusetts, strung up a clothesline this summer in her upscale neighborhood she was confronted by one of her neighbors, who called the rope "poor white trash."

McCormack says the prejudice against clotheslines runs wide and deep, starting with his own family. "My mother grew up in New York during the depression and she hated clotheslines. To her, it spoke of poverty," says McCormack. "To me, having grown up fairly comfortably, I can afford to be indignant at my mother's poverty."

Countering the old prejudice against clotheslines, says McCormack, is a new concern about global warming that has been heightened in recent years by declining snowfalls that have hit the state's pocketbook hard.

"What happened is 'An Inconvenient Truth' came out at the same time that people are beginning to see this [climate change]. Thirty years ago we were always talking about the future… But the actual effects were also in the future tense," says McCormack. "Now our ski industry is under extreme stress. Our maple industry is under extreme stress. Our snowmobile industry is under extreme stress. Our biggest tourist season is the autumn colors and the last couple of years the colors have not been quite as vivid as they used to be." Although nervous Vermonters cannot prove global warming is responsible for rising temperatures and bland foliage, McCormack says worried business people have it in their sights as the chief suspect.

Joining environmentalists and business people in supporting right to dry legislation are old-time Vermonters who equate clothes flapping in the breeze with Yankee frugality, says McCormack.

"New Englanders are people who consider a bowl of milk with crackers and three or four oysters a good meal. Even affluent New Englanders tend to favor a sort of understated sort of living. And we Vermonters, the real Vermonters — the salt of the earth people — we dry our clothes on clotheslines."

Clotheslines are not only very old New England, they also fit in with other healthy trends, says Lee. "Your clothes smell better, they last longer. You save money," says Lee, who notes that clotheslines provide much-needed exercise, and the opportunity to socialize with neighbors, reducing social isolation. Lee also stresses that foregoing mechanical dryers can prevent dryer fires — which, he says, annually cause $99 million worth of property damage, 400-500 injuries and five deaths.

To smooth opposition to clotheslines, Project Clothesline has contacted the Community Associations Institute (CAI), a member-based advocacy group based in Alexandria, Virginia.

Lee says a conference call is in the works between his group and CAI where a variety of energy conservation issues will be discussed, including clotheslines.

According to CAI Communications Public Relations Vice President Frank Rathbun, his organization "supports thoughtful environmental stewardship. But we do not have a policy specific to clotheslines." Noting that his organization only advises its members on issues, Rathbun says, "If somebody in an association wants to air dry their clothes and it is against the rules of that association, I would encourage them to take the issue to their management or board and let the board visit, or revisit, the issue. We think this kind of decision should be up to the homeowners in the community."

Harvey says there's been a huge shift in public awareness in the last six months that could change the average homeowner's mind about clotheslines from objectionable to trendy. "Younger people are getting involved, and adopting this as their cause," she says.

Accompanying the groundswell of interest in energy saving is a new willingness to sacrifice and change, says Harvey. "The important thing is to get people to do their share. If you can't afford — I can't afford — to buy a Prius I can look at my own carbon footprint and my own house and change my light bulbs. Do what you can, and this is one more way we can look at our carbon footprint and say, 'Hey, I don't really have to use the dryer today. It's a nice day, so I'll put the laundry out.'"

That openness to change is all that Lee is looking for. "I'd like to see a shift in America similar to the rest of the world is and have the clothes dryer as a backup to the clotheslines, instead of the clotheslines being the backup to the dryer."

While looking for change, McCormack says he's willing to make accommodations on the clothesline issue. "If we have a week of rain and I have a meeting and I don't have a clean shirt. I use the dryer. I'm not a fanatic."

With a little give and take on all sides of the issue, perhaps differences over clotheslines will be ironed out and everybody could come out a winner.