Department of Energy plans to roll back energy efficiency standards for light bulbs.
Comment period ends May 3, 2019
About half of all light bulbs, the pear-shaped ones, already meet high efficiency standards and are L.E.D.s The L.E.D.s have saved consumers $billions. New standards for the other 50% of bulbs are due to begin in 2020. But the DOE wants to block the new standards, in order to carry on their mission to extract every last drop of oil and gas on the planet.
Excerpts from “Thomas Edison Would Not Be Happy, ” NYTimes, April 13, 2019:
“The Department of Energy now wants to roll back new efficiency standards signed into law by President George W. Bush and updated, as required, during the Obama administration.The latest update added inefficient three-way, reflector, globe-shaped and candelabra-style bulbs to the list covered by the standards. These incandescent and halogen bulbs are used in up to 2.7 billion lighting sockets, just under half of all the conventional sockets in American homes and businesses.
The new standards, which would require these bulbs to be as efficient as widely used pear-shaped bulbs and would phase out inefficient incandescents and halogens, were approved in 2017 in the waning days of the Obama administration after a rule-making process of more than two years. Manufacturers and retailers have been preparing since then for the new rules to become effective on Jan. 1, 2020.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration plans to step back from that decision and exempt these bulbs from the standards. If that happens, American consumers will miss out on an estimated $12 billion in annual savings on their utility bills, or about $100 for each household, according to the Appliance Standards Awareness Project. It also means more electricity will need to be generated — 25 coal-burning 500-megawatt power plants’ worth, based on calculations by the Natural Resources Defense Council, creating the same amount of pollution that spews from the tailpipes of seven million cars a year.
The European Union has already banned incandescent and halogen bulbs, and many developing countries are in the process of doing the same, which means America could become a dumping ground for cheap, energy-wasting bulbs.”
What should I say?
Dear Secretary Perry,
The DOE holds immense power over our future. Actions taken by the DOE to lead the country in our transition to a decarbonized economy; or not, will have immense impact on the speed and severity of climate change in the 21stcentury.
Business-as-usual energy policies must be reversed. Sixty-five percent of the energy generated in the U.S. is wasted, according to your own agency. Raising energy efficiency standards for lighting will reduce carbon emissions, boost the economy, and create jobs. The NRDC has estimated that if every household in the United States replaced just one old bulb with an L.E.D., the country’s overall electric bill would be cutby more than $5 billion in 10 years, and two million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution would be avoided.
There is no Planet B.
Contact
Submit comment online to the DOE at regulations.gov https://www.regulations.gov/searchResults?rpp=25&po=0&s=Energy%2BConservation%2BStandards%2Bfor%2BGeneral%2BService%2BLamps&fp=true&dct=FR%2BPR%2BN%2BO%2BFR%2BPR%2BN%2BO click on Comment Now!
Secretary Rick Perry
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Ave. SW
Washington, DC 20585
202-586-5000