Posted on 09/18/2010 12:26:58 PM PDT by goldendays
Energy Department Says It Has ‘Mandate’ to Force ‘Market Transformation’ for Household Appliances
Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi said Thursday that the U.S. Department of Energy has a “mandate” to issue regulations that will determine what household appliances are available to Americans in the future.
as a “mandate” to issue regulations to determine what household appliances are available to Americans in the future.
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.
Just the commie ‘RATS doing all the things they accuse the Republicans of trying to do.
God damn these leftist tyrants!
I don’t know why people are putting up with this.
The government is already mandating what toilet, faucet, and showerhead we can use, they are taking away from us our incandescent lighbulbs, they are going to mandate what kind of appliances we can use IN OUR OWN HOMES and how much water and energy we can use!
NONE of this is the government’s business.
This is again, all about government control, has nothing to do with “saving the planet and environment”.
And they’re so gleeful about their ability to BE tyrants. And how many manufacturers will go out of business as a result of not being able to meet these standards? How many more jobs lost?
wtf
I say extremists are those that continue to support the existence of the Depts. of Education and Energy.
“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.”
Unrestrained power to unelected officials and we can do nothing about it — except elect a Republican majority who better overturn all this!
We’ll be beating our clothes on rock by the stream before you know it.
New subject same issue.
We the Legislative branch has ceded it’s laws making authority to the executive branch. We have become a country ruled but a President and a President alone. Sometimes our ruler is a Republican President, sometimes it’s a Democratic President but we always have ONE person who can make up laws all by himself and fine or jail people at his discretion. The only check on this one person is a court that the executive branch appoints.
california-smart-meter-revolt
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/the-california-smart-meter-revolt/19558192/
ITS ALL ABOUT CONTROL
Why don’t they just ban the use of electricity and water in homes, except for allowing two cups of water for drinking per person, just look how much energy that would conserve.
Bring back the outhouses, send people washing their clothes in the stream (and if you don’t have a stream near you, it’s just tough!). Candles are probably bad for the environment too, so people should just go to bed when it gets dark.
(sarcasm, of course, but that is where they are headed)
My keyboard is going low on batteries. I want a do-over.
New subject, same issue.
The Legislative branch has ceded it’s law making authority to the executive branch. We have become a country ruled but a President and a President alone. Sometimes our ruler is a Republican President, sometimes it’s a Democratic President but we always have ONE person who can make up laws all by himself and fine or jail people at his discretion. The only check on this one person is a court that the executive branch appoints.
In 1776, America's Founders abandoned the European model and triggered the greatest explosion of liberty for individuals, the greatest opportunity for individual achievement, and the most prosperous and wealthy nation on earth.
Leaders of that day, including Edmund Burke in his Speech on Conciliation, as well as early American historians, made note of the astounding difference between the American and European economies. They also noted the difference between the amount of individual liberty which existed for citizens.
While Europe struggled with oppressive government intervention, the genius Founders of America recognized enduring truths about human nature, the human tendency to abuse power, and the possibilities of liberty for individuals. Richard Frothingham's 1872 "History of the Rise of the Republic of the United States," Page 14, contained the following footnote item on the condition of citizens of France:
"Footnote 1. M. de Champagny (Dublin Review, April, 1868) says of France, 'We were and are unable to go from Paris to Neuilly; or dine more than twenty together; or have in our portmanteau three copies of the same tract; or lend a book to a friend: or put a patch of mortar on our own house, if it stands in the street; or kill a partridge; or plant a tree near the road-side; or take coal out of our own land: or teach three or four children to read, . .. without permission from the civil government.'
Clearly the government of France laid an oppressive regulatory and tax burden on citizens, robbing them of their Creator-endowed liberty and enjoyment thereof. Frothingham observed that such coercive power constituted "a noble form robbed of its lifegiving spirit."
In 2010, our so-called "progressive" leaders who have been nurtured by the ideas of Mao, Marx, and Lenin, are attempting to take America back to the bad old days of European-style planning and control.
Too bad their Ivy League educations had not schooled them in ancient wisdom literature, in Adam Smith's understanding of the "Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," and in the ideas of liberty which made America a place where millions of oppressed Europeans fled to find freedom and prosperity!
Or maybe D.O.E employee heads.
Chu and Zoi ... there’s a joke in there somewhere ....
And how many people won’t be able to find appliances they can afford when it comes time to replace?
These scumbags work for and are paid by us NOW are telling the “boss” what to do !!! shut off their Damn money and watch that bunch disappear.
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