Appliance efficiency boosted

Minneapolis Star Tribune: The cause of energy conservation recorded a major victory this week when the U.S. Department of Energy, after six years of dawdling and even backsliding, agreed to follow the law and raise efficiency standards for more than 20 household appliances.
Three decades of thrift-minded tinkering has dramatically lowered the energy consumption of refrigerators, ranges, air conditioners, furnaces and laundry machines, with changes essentially invisible to consumers until they note the happy impact on their gas and electric bills. But the untapped potential is also staggering.
Credible estimates suggest that the new standards will lower electricity consumption by the equivalent of taking 12 million households off the power grid. That means air pollution reductions equivalent to taking 18 million cars off the road -- much of it by downsizing the need for new power plants.
There may be no lower-hanging fruit available to a government serious about sensible energy policies, which is why Congress decided in the Carter administration to establish minimum efficiency standards, and in the Reagan administration to require that they undergo periodic upgrades. But the Bush administration has been inexplicably uninterested in plucking it.
Uneven results
Under George H.W. Bush, the Energy Department revised five standards; under Bill Clinton, it revised 10. Since 2001 it has upgraded none -- while actually trying to move backward on requirements for central air-conditioning systems, and to set furnace standards that most new models already exceed.
Not even the administration's critics on this point are exactly sure why this is so. There was no great opposition from manufacturers, at least not compared to automakers' lobbying against higher mileage requirements. Some industry associations actually backed the tighter efficiency rules, partly in the public interest and partly from a self-interested desire for regulatory clarity. Indeed, raising appliance efficiency was a centerpiece of the administration's "Energy Hog" promotion last year.
Still, it took a lawsuit by 15 states, New York City and a handful of advocacy groups to force compliance with the law. And so, under a consent agreement signed Monday, new standards for 22 major appliance groups will be phased in between next January and June 2011. Better late than never.