Obama to DOE: Chop-Chop!

President Obama issued a memo today to the Department of Energy on appliance efficiency standards requiring that,

a) The Department meet all their deadlines to issue standards between now and Aug 8th and,
b) Accelerate the process for standards with deadlines after Aug 8th that will result in the greatest energy savings.

Later in the day, the President mentioned the memo in a speech.

"In fact, as part of this effort, today I've signed a presidential memorandum requesting that the Department of Energy set new efficiency standards for common household appliances. This will save consumers money. This will spur innovation. And this will conserve tremendous amounts energy. We'll save through these simple steps over the next thirty years the amount of energy produced over a two-year period by all the coal-fired power plants in America."

Bravo, Mr. President. It is an amazing new reality when the President of the United States speaks directly to the importance of efficiency standards and goes so far as to instruct his energy agency to be proactive rather than reactive in issuing those standards. The simple significance of this act can not be understated.

The President clearly understands the importance of the standards program and what is arguably the most effective energy policy in this country. The numbers don't lie - 50 quads and $500 billion in consumer savings in the next 30 years. I particularly like how the energy savings were framed to have personal impact to the President as enough to run the state of Illinois for 26 years. It's actually enough to run half of the entire country for a year, since we use approximately 100 quads of energy a year.

The savings are only from the standards that DOE is already required set. The Department has the authority to expand the program to cover new appliances without waiting till Congress tells them they have to, and there is no shortage of options. The state of California has repeatedly shown how energy savings can be found where DOE has failed to look.

Having a President motivated to make the US the most efficient country in the world will put money in consumer's pockets. This is a stark contrast to his predecessors, as DOE has historically been a laggard on standards and missed some deadlines by decades. Under the previous administration, only 4 standards were set and opportunities to save money and energy were ignored. In response, a lawsuit was brought by NRDC and several states that resulted in a consent decree schedule of rulemakings for 22 appliances. After a few additions, we now have binding commitments from DOE to set 25 new standards in the next 4 years - and a President and Secretary of Energy who understand just how important they are. Things are looking up.

The opportunities are there for the taking right away. The lamp rule I blogged about last week is the largest potential energy saver of any standard in history, and strengthening that proposal and closing loopholes should be priority number one for the "new" DOE.

They have their marching orders, so now its time to get to work.