Bureaucrats Controlling Your Thermostats: The Possibility Is Real

Patterico's Pontifications ^ | Jan. 08, 2008

[jdm]

There is an imbalance between supply and demand in energy, and some California bureaucrats are standing around wondering what to do about it.

One says: “Run commercials asking people to conserve!” This is met with general approval.

Another says: “Make homeowners install thermostats that we bureaucrats can remotely control!” More general approval.

A third says: “Raise . . . prices?”

A roomful of angry people turns on him. “Raise prices — as a way of balancing supply and demand?!?!?! What an idiot!”

That’s California in a nutshell.

It appears that proposal number two — letting bureaucrats control homeowners’ thermostats — is indeed a potential reality. Earlier today I linked an article in the American Thinker written by Joseph Somsel warning of this possibility. Our friend Bradley J. Fikes saw my post, and spent the day checking out Somsel’s allegations and writing a Big Media piece on it. Bradley’s piece begins:

California utilities would control the temperature of new homes and commercial buildings in emergencies with a radio-controlled thermostat, under a proposed state update to building energy efficiency standards.

Customers could not override the thermostats during “emergency events,” according to the proposal, part of a 236-page revision to building standards. The document is scheduled to be considered by the California Energy Commission, a state agency, on Jan. 30.

The description does not provide any exception for health or safety concerns. It also does not define what are “emergency events.”

Sweet. Big Media is good for focusing attention on outrages like this. Once people get the idea that California bureaucrats really want to control our thermostats, it will very possibly be all over talk radio. If I’m right about that, the plan will die a quick death from there.

Congratulations to Joseph and Bradley on their excellent work. I hope it bears fruit.

I get in enough fights with my wife over the thermostat. I don’t need to fight with bureaucrats too.

[listenhillary]

A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.

Barry Goldwater

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Nanny State Ping.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

When that concept spreads to the Moonbats in ‘Das Wisconsin Kapital,’ there are going to be lots of frostbitten babies each winter. *Rolleyes*

However, one thing the Bleeding Hearts up here do is to NOT cut off anyone’s heat or electricity until Spring, so those on the dole in cheaply built, poorly insulated Section Eight Housing could be blasting their furnaces all winter long with the windows and doors open, and we taxpayers still pick up the bill!

However, those of us with well insulated homes, that watch their energy consumption because we’re CHEAP, not EnvoroWackos, will be made to pay for everyone’s heat.

Substitute any subject for “heat” and you can clearly see how badly Government wants those of us productive members to foot the bill for everyone...themselves included.

I can’t think of a simpler example of Nanny Statism than that.

[Gabz]

Nanny State PING!!!!!!

[Gabz]

Don’t give them anymore bright ideas....PLEASE!

[listenhillary]

The left’s path to utopia if followed to its logical conclusion will be realized when one percent of the population is carrying everyone on their backs.

Then what?

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Exactly. It’s madness.

[metmom]

... so those on the dole in cheaply built, poorly insulated Section Eight Housing could be blasting their furnaces all winter long with the windows and doors open, and we taxpayers still pick up the bill!

And they do and we do.

I worked with a girl whose husband worked for social services and he saw that all the time, and we did too, in the house next door.

I suppose that you really would want those windows open for fresh air considering the way those places reeked. I couldn't stand downwind of that place without gagging. No joke. The stench generated by dirty humans way exceeds any barn I've ever smelled.

[SheLion]

An email letter I received concerning Huckabee - 2008

Huckabee supported and signed into law the Clean Indoor Air Act of 2006, which prohibits smoking in most Arkansas workplaces. He said the other night that he supports banning smoking in all public spaces. I could never vote for Huckabee because he would only further perpetuate the discrimination and hostility towards smokers. When you consider that 20% of the American voters smoke, I do not believe he can be elected by offending such a large segment of the population. By his stand on smoking he has also demonstrated to me that he is not an independent thinker. If he had done his own research on secondhand smoke, he would have discovered that there is a great number of credible studies proving that secondhand smoke is not harmful. We have to spread the word that he will be hostile to smokers.

[steelyourfaith]

"Hot Air Cult"

~~Anthropogenic Global Warming ™ ping~~

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I live across the road from a pig farm, but I know what you mean, LOL!

[gidget7]

Flee while you can to less crazy parts of the country. If you stay and pay taxes, you are facilitating the loons.

While I agree with that premise, we have to consider that as we flee, so do the socialist. They move to conservative areas to take one for the team so to speak, and spread their venom all over the country. We have to fight socialism where it is, or soon we will have nowhere to flee to! Look At Tenn. and other parts of the south that are increasing socialist. No I think the time to fight this sort of thing has come.

[The Ghost of Rudy McRomney]

He won’t be the nominee, you sexy redhead. I keep telling you that. ;^D

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off

Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown

New!!: Dr. John Ray's
GREENIE WATCH

Ping me if you find one I've missed.

---

Uh-Oh...

[GSWarrior]

Don’t you understand that this is for the environment and will ensure that our children will have enough energy? This is a good thing.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[westmichman]

They’ll have to pry my thermostat from my warm dead fingers!

[Eric Blair 2084]

Nobody gave a crap about the carribou and the trees. Global warming lies make it possible for leftists to control the sheeple and their behavior.

[alwaysconservative]

I’ve spent so much energy ranting about the dangerously deluded left that I have nothing but true loathing for the kind of people who would do this.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

PING!