The US Department of Energy has proposed new efficiency standards for household appliances and wind turbine manufacturing.
, DOE is required to conduct regular reviews of appliance efficiency standards by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. Although it is not required to tighten the standards, it usually chooses to do so.would like DOE to abandon its policy of ratcheting up its appliance efficiency standards on a regular basis. On its website, it claims, “More stringent federal efficiency standards are likely to increase costs for manufacturers and consumers without providing meaningful energy savings.
But Andrew deLaski, the executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, said, “The best models [of refrigerators and washing machines] have gotten much more efficient while others still use older technologies that cause higher utility bills each month.”We have seen this movie before. The plot involves the tension between regulators and manufacturers that dates back generations.
The very essence of the debate is the notion that government should get the hell out of the way and let manufacturers do what they do best — manufacture stuff. The very roots of a civil society are involved, with some suggesting that every rule since the New Deal is a form of “government overreach.
Automobiles cost twice as much today as they did at the turn of the century and the industry blames every penny of that increase on burdensome government regulations. The essence of the argument is that if people are dumb enough to buy a cheap car that folds up like a cardboard suitcase in a collision, they should be free to do so. This is America, dammit, and if we want to waste energy or drive unsafe cars, we should be free to do so.
Every story has two sides. The DOE admits these new appliance standards will require the industry to invest upwards of $2 billion to comply with them, but counters that the rebates and incentives baked into the Inflation Reduction Act will more than offset that amount in terms of increased sales. It’s impossible to know who is right, as predicting the future is a fraught exercise under the best of circumstances.
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