Contact: Ben Somberg, 202-658-8129, bsomberg@aceee.org
Washington, DC— A bill passed by the U.S. House today (H.R. 4626) would raise utility bills for households and businesses by handing the executive branch new powers to undo efficiency standards for appliances and equipment and reducing the Department of Energy’s ability to strengthen standards in the future.
“Stalling efficiency progress and even going backward would only increase utility bills for families struggling with high costs today,” said Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project. “This bill would keep old, energy-wasting technologies on the market, increasing strain on the electric grid and locking in higher energy costs.”
H.R. 4626 would create regulatory uncertainty for manufacturers, directing the Department of Energy (DOE) to reevaluate standards within the two years after they are finalized or in response to a petition filed after the two-year period. It could help DOE try to revoke standards. An ASAP analysis found that U.S. households would have paid about $6,000 more on utility bills over the last decade, on average, if national efficiency standards weren’t in place.
The bill would also add obstacles for future administrations seeking to update standards and would reduce accountability for federal regulators by:
- Prohibiting standards—no matter their savings for consumers—in cases where the additional upfront cost is paid back in more than three years, even for products that last for decades.
- Prohibiting DOE from updating a standard if it would save less than 0.3 quadrillion Btu of energy and reduce energy or water use by less than 10%—even though standards that don’t meet these arbitrary thresholds can bring significant cost savings to families and businesses.
- Eliminating the primary accountability tool ensuring DOE regulators periodically update standards when beneficial to the public. This process, set in a bipartisan 2007 law, uses an eight-year review cycle to assess and implement necessary updates based on technological advances.
Existing law already requires that DOE set standards that are “technologically feasible and economically justified” and ensure that consumers continue to have access to product features they value. The department is expressly prohibited from setting standards that eliminate categories of products that use a particular fuel type, such as gas.
Because of technological improvements in many product types, significant additional savings are achievable through future standards if they are not blocked. ASAP has found that future standards could save U.S. households an average of nearly $150 annually on their utility bills over two decades (2030–2050) and collectively save businesses $13.8 billion annually.
An ASAP fact sheet provides more information on H.R. 4626.
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