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.

[American Constitutionalist]

" It’s for our own good, ya know. "

How is the cardboard box house and soup can stove market coming along ? .....
They won't be happy until we become exstint, living out of caves, or in cardboard box houses... no, wait, cardboard ? nope, not environmentally friendly ya know.

[American Constitutionalist]

ALL YOU STINKING WASHINGTON POLITICIONS LIVING IN NICE HOMES, DRIVING BMWS, WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING US TO THE POOR HOUSE !

[Cacique]

No doubdt about it, these people are delusional, stupid and insane. This is an extremely dangerous combination.

[American Constitutionalist]

The Global Warming deception is a precursor of how it's going to be when the fooled people will be deceived by the anti-Christ.

[AndyJackson]

soup can stove

Here you go. Using the tin foil on your head build one of these:

[jazusamo]

I can sympathize! Got a little different story.

A year or so ago within about a month our toaster and coffee maker that we’d had for years died. The wife replaced both with good named brands (several times) and they’d just die too, like in a few days. Of course the store would replace them but she was getting tired of returning them.

She finally replaced each one with the cheapest Chinese junk she could find, no bells and whistles, just bare bones products and they’re still working just fine.

Can’t remember the cost of the coffee maker but it was cheap. I specifically remember the cost of the toaster, retail was $9.99 and the store had it on sale for a dollar off. LOL!

[Eagle Eye]

They know what’s best for us.

[Repeal The 17th]

These people are really starting to piss me off.

[Repeal The 17th]

These people are really starting to piss me off.

[American Constitutionalist]

Nurse Ratched .....

[Don Corleone]

"we can actually just issue regulations and do market transformation."

This is outright totalitarian government. It must be abolished or we will be living in the 1960's equivalent of the USSR/Cuba/China. Can you imagine how these people talk in private if this is what they are willing to say publicly?

[American Constitutionalist]

Kinda limits our diet in what we can cook with that sunstove.

[andy58-in-nh]

I have a “mandate” as well. It’s called the Second Amendment.

[Mariner]

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

The HELL they do!

Just where do they suppose said "mandate" comes from?

[Mariner]

They keep it up and we'll have to move from the ballot box to full-on TRIALS and HANGINGS ON THE CAPITOL STEPS.

This scourge must be eliminated...this thinking that unelected administrators have the power to do whatever they wish. And, that thinking ORIGINATES in both the White House and the Congress.

These people must learn fear of THE people.

[dennisw]

I just might make a solar cooker like that and see what it can do.

[Wonder Warthog]

"There will be fines (taxes?) for not buying the appropriate appliances."

No, they'll simply tell the appliance dealers that they can no longer sell the old type. I ran into this a couple of years ago.

The house we bought (western Washington) came with an electric forced-air furnace, but not air conditioning. For the most part, where we are AC isn't really needed but a few days out of the year.

But my wife and I have bad inhalant allergies, and need to keep the house "buttoned up", even in summer. The contractor who designed and built the house installed an AC heat exchanger coil in the electric furnace ducting, so all we "should" have had to do was buy the compressor, have it installed and wired up, and hooked up to the already-installed heat exchanger coils.

BUT NOBODY WOULD SELL ME THE APPROPRIATE COMPRESSOR! "We can't install those any more due to new energy efficiency standards".

So we had to have the whole system replaced. The new heat pump works well, and it "has" dropped our monthly bills, but I was NOT happy about being FORCED to make that change.

And I suspect much more and more onerous things from the future unless we throw the socialists and their eco-commie allies out of office.....permanently.

[PA Engineer]

Zoi said that stricter federal energy efficiency standards will “drive innovation”out of the country and are “cost effective for third world manufacturers.”

Fixed part of it.

[Cloverfarm]

I wonder what her house looks like. I wonder what kind of car she drives. I wonder where she goes for vacation — putzing around the garden at home and relaxing, or jetting off to some exotic location?

[Right Wing Assault]

I don’t WANT a high efficiency toaster.