Energy Department Says It Has ‘Mandate’ to Force ‘Market Transformation’ for Household Appliances

CNSNews ^ | September 17, 2010 | Penny Starr

[jazusamo]

Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi said Thursday that the U.S. Department of Energy has a “mandate” to issue regulations to determine what household appliances are available to Americans in the future.

Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi (CNSNews.com photo/Penny Starr)

Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the recently reestablished Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB), Zoi pointed to four tactics the Obama administration intended use to advance the “deployment of clean energy.” The first three were government subsidies for private-sector green energy projects, special tax incentives for green energy projects and low-interest government-backed loans for green energy projects.

“The fourth one, which the secretary and I love,” said Zoi, “is where we have a mandate. Where we can actually just issue regulations and do market transformation.”

Zoi was referring to authority the department has under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. That law gives the DOE the power to set efficiency standards for energy-consuming products.

“That’s an existing statute that this department of energy is going to make work really hard,” Zoi said. “We’ve already issued appliance standards that are going to save the American public somewhere between $250 billion and $300 billion over the next 20 years just by getting the crummy stuff off the market.”

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who also spoke at the meeting, announced in April that the department had finalized five new “higher energy efficiency standards” for commercial clothes washers, small electric motors, water heaters, direct heating equipment and pool heaters.

Standards for 10 additional categories of products are expected to be finalized by the end of next year, according to a DOE spokeswoman. These will include new standards for refrigerators, microwave ovens, residential and mobile home furnaces, fluorescent light ballasts, residential clothes washers and dryers, room and central air conditioners, and battery chargers.

“We’re going to update [the standards] more frequently” said Zoi. “We have the power to do that in the statute.”

Before becoming President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy, Zoi served as environmental adviser to President Bill Clinton and the founding CEO of former Vice President Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection.

Zoi said that stricter federal energy efficiency standards will “drive innovation” and are “cost effective.”

“As the secretary [Chu] says, ‘We’re going to make people save money for themselves,’” Zoi said. “They haven’t dumped the dollar bills on the ground yet.”

The SEAB was first chartered in the George H. W. Bush administration, but was disbanded by President George W. Bush’s Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. Chu reestablished the board in August.

Jen Stutsman, an Energy Department spokeswoman, told CNSNews.com that energy efficiency regulations issued by the department are designed to help consumers and manufacturers.

“Our goal is to develop standards that are both technically feasible and economically justified and that maximize the benefits to consumers while minimizing any negative impacts on manufacturers or others,” Stutsman said.

At the first meeting of the reestablished board on Thursday, Chu said energy and science are vital to the country’s future, as is the work of the DOE.

“We feel that beyond just energy, science is at the heart of what will keep America prosperous in the coming years,” Chu said.

The 12-member board includes former government officials and corporate executives, including Clinton Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch; Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry and former Clinton Labor Secretary Alexis Herman; and former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine.

[AndyJackson]

Nix-on-Dick started it and Bush II elevated it to cabinet level

Nixon started ERDA which was the AEC (nuclear weapons) with additional energy research at the laboratories that the AEC had built. With the oil crisis, Jimmy Carter expanded its powers into the DOE by adding the federal energy regulatory commission and a number of applied energy programs, including the biggest of all, shale oil, which program went the way of the dodo.

[Arrowhead1952]

Have you seen this crap?

[US_MilitaryRules]

I was working in Mass and I was staying with a working partner at his house, ultra lib fascists, and the guys wife looked just like her. A clone.

[bamahead]

Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
View past Libertarian pings here

[Pining_4_TX]

It’s already here. The new washers do not work as well as the older ones, so you have to set the cycle to heavy-duty clean to get things clean. That means it bascially beats your clothes to death.

And have you noticed the new dishwasher detergents without phosphates? They leave spot and a film on your glasses and don’t get dishes as clean. So, many people will use more detergent, which can ruin your dishwasher.

How much more of this are we going to take?

[Smokin' Joe]

See, when I want a hot iron, I want it so hot that Satan would recoil from the heat. I want the walls to melt

Thrift shops, rummage sales, etc. might be your best bet. Either that or a couple of anitque irons sitting on the stove burners...

[CSM]

‘We’re going to make people save money for themselves,’

It is only Fascism when Republicans do it - Sincerely, your local Dem.

[CSM]

“So, although this feels “bad” right now, over the long term, it’s good.”

Except that we can never get rid of all their “progress.” We go backwards by baby steps and jump “forward” with regulations by leaps and bounds.

[Texas resident]

Mandate to force. Says it all.

[ilovesarah2012]

Have they decreed what toilet paper we will have to use yet?

FUBO

[mojitojoe]

I don’t think Cathy has ever had a “Man Date” in her life.
__________________
Obongo had plenty of “man dates” but no female dates until he snagged his ‘beard’ for political reasons.

[ilovesarah2012]

Packaging for a Rowenta iron:
Do not iron clothes on body.

[concerned about politics]

“As the secretary [Chu] says, ‘We’re going to make people save money for themselves,’” Zoi said.

[poobear]

“Saving a few bucks a month in electricity means nothing if they force the price of the product so high few people can afford it. Grrrrr!”

I’m already there. I’m sitting in a home office in Florida with no AC and I stopped using the clothes dryer 5 weeks ago. Was going to insulate my attic this summer but Progress Energy needed another $500.00 deposit. I used no energy during the coldest winter in 30 years so my bill were under $150.00. I was paying them bi-monthly. Progress Energy changed their rules and said I was late paying and wanted a new deposit after 15 years in the same home.

What’s next? No hot water? Kerosene lamps?

[RipSawyer]

“Now we’ll have to wash our dishes and clothes three times, like we have to flush the toilet three times.”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

It’s really amazing, we save water by using a smaller tank so that we have to flush it three times instead of one and we save money on gasoline by paying a subsidy to corn growers to produce corn for ethanol so that we can buy gasoline with ten percent ethanol that cuts our gas mileage by AT LEAST fifteen percent. This new age math is really something.

[CholeraJoe]

Your figures for ethanol powered vehicles are a little off. I have a flexible fuel F-150 truck. It gets 22 miles to the gallon on 93 octane unleaded fuel at $2.96 per gallon and 20 miles to the gallon on E-85 fuel at $2.49 per gallon (My actual experience, yours may vary.)

Cost per gallon difference=18.6% less - Advantage E-85
Miles per gallon difference=9.1% more - Advantage 93 octane
Looks like a 2:1 return on investment to me.

[RipSawyer]

Invalid comparison, please make a valid one before saying that my figures are off.

[CholeraJoe]

OK. How about this one? Same data expressed a different way. E-85 costs $0.1245 to drive a mile and 93 octane costs $0.1345. Or is that too complicated, too?

[RipSawyer]

Joe, you miss the entire point, I am talking about a comparison between pure gasoline and TEN PERCENT ETHANOL in the same vehicle, one which is not designed to run on E-85.

You on the other hand, are comparing 93 octane which is probably ten percent ethanol, at least you don’t specify pure gasoline, against E-85. The two comparisons relate like cucumbers and watermelons, similar in some respects but very different.

Then there is the matter of the subsidy for growing ethanol. Part of the cost of your E-85 is paid by government subsidy, stolen from the taxpayers. Add that back and your E-85 would cost more than straight gasoline.

Now, is that too complicated?

[tacticalogic]

Don’t forget, you’re also paying taxes to subsidize ethanol production, so that E85 actaully cost more than what you paid at the pump.