Bush DOE Kills Air-Conditioner Energy Savings Reg

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

Reuters via Yahoo - May 23, 2002

Energy Dept kills Clinton-era air conditioner rule

By Tom Doggett 

WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Thursday
struck down a Clinton-era plan to make air conditioners and heat
pumps use 30 percent less energy, saying such strict standards would
make the appliances too expensive for low-income families.

Instead, as expected, the Energy Department issued final rules to
require air conditioners and heat pumps to be just 20 percent more
energy efficient.

The Bush White House has been criticized by green groups for rolling
back measures to protect the environment and letting polluters
rewrite laws.

Since the Bush administration came to power, it has sought to ease
pollution rules for mining companies on public land, begun reviewing
a ban on road building in many national forests, pushed for opening
up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling and pulled the
United States out of an international treaty to slow global warming.

Environmental protection is likely to be a major issue in the
November elections for Democrats seeking to gain a majority in the
U.S. House of Representatives and maintain their narrow control of
the U.S. Senate.

Under the air conditioner efficiency rule, U.S. manufacturers must
start producing the new systems beginning in 2004. Any less-energy
efficient units still in their inventories can be sold through
January 2006.

Manufacturers argued, with success, that the stricter Clinton
standard would make air conditioners more costly and put them out of
reach of low-income families. Making air conditioners more expensive
would also discourage Americans from replacing aging, less efficient
systems, they said.

Air conditioner makers such as Carrier, Lennox International
(NYSE:LII - News), American Standard's (NYSE:ASD - News) Trane, and
York International (NYSE:YRK - News) had urged the Bush
administration to drop the higher Clinton efficiency standard.

Goodman Manufacturing Company, the maker of Amana air conditioners,
broke with the industry and supported the 30 percent standard.

With the 20 percent energy efficiency improvement, the Energy
Department said consumers will save an estimated $113 from lower
energy costs over the lifetime of each new appliance. A new air
conditioning system costs between $2,000 and $4,000.

However, environmental groups said consumers could have saved another
$1 billion annually in energy costs by 2020 if the Clinton
administration's proposal had been adopted.

"This latest rollback not only hurts the consumer and the
environment, it also harms businesses that depend on a reliable
electricity supply," said the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Air conditioners are the single biggest contributor to peak
electricity demand during the summer months.

Green groups also contend that weaker standards for air conditioners
mean that more U.S. power plants -- which are a major source of
greenhouse gases -- will be needed to supply electricity to homes
over the coming two decades.

The states of New York, Vermont and Connecticut filed a lawsuit on
Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to
reinstate the 30-percent efficiency standard.

"At a time when we should be doing all we can to conserve energy and
achieve energy security, it is counterproductive for the Bush
administration to roll back a crucial appliance efficiency standard
that would save an enormous amount of energy," said New York Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer.
 
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