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Energy Star Program For Homes And Appliances Is On Trump's Chopping Block (npr.org)
Appliance manufacturers and home builders are in Washington, D.C., today to celebrate a popular energy efficiency program, even as it's slated for elimination in President Trump's proposed budget. NPR adds: You probably know the program's little blue label with the star -- the Environmental Protection Agency says 90 percent of U.S. households do. [...] The 25-year-old Energy Star program appears to be targeted simply because it's run by the federal government. It's one of 50 EPA programs that would be axed under Trump's budget plan, which would shrink the agency's funding by more than 30 percent. Critics of Energy Star say the government should get involved in the marketplace only when absolutely necessary. But that argument doesn't hold sway for the program's legions of supporters, which span nonprofits, companies and trade groups.
The higher the organizational level at which a standard is set, the fewer groups have to come up with standards, and the easier compliance becomes. Done at least somewhat close to well, it is more efficient for the standard setters, the companies who follow the standard, and the consumers who judge by it.
Now, Energy Star isn't a safety standard, so it's not exactly critical, but it's still a great thing to have a common measuring stick for all to use.
Please define absolutely necessary.
/. bug which narrows the comments.
On an unrelated note, I see that we are again suffering from the
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Why don't they spin energy star off into a non-profit. It can be self supported with "membership" from appliance manufacturers.
Product makers apply for Energy Star ratings, they pay a small fee (how much can this program actually cost, anyway?). Consumers who care will be more interested in the products that are rated. I don't see the problem.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Finally America is winning again, and that goddamned EnergyStar will sing to the depths of hell, where it belongs.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I hope they get rid of smartway as well, I'm pretty sure that whole program is useless.
That's because Energy Star is pretty much a scam. It takes more time, energy, and money to actually verify the tens of thousands of "Energy Star" appliances. So manufacturers self report energy ratings - which are often off by 35%-50%. That is, the self reported appliances may use 35%-50% more energy than reported.
Since it's implementation, Energy Star has been a half hearted effort and a marketing tool. "Energy Star" doesn't mean anything. But millions can claim "Energy Star" tax breaks based on false marketing data.
My source... the same NPR news organization that is reporting this story.
Indeed, Energy Star needs to be examined and it's about time some one is putting it under scrutiny. If Energy Star is legit, they have nothing to worry about. But this has been a problem since its inception some 25 years ago. Just one of many, many, many half baked government projects.
I think the real issue here is that leftists are learning what happens when they push people too far: a backlash happens, and it's often more severe than they anticipated.
We've seen a lot of regulation pushed by leftist types over the past 50 years. Some of this has been good. But a lot of it has been excessive. When it hasn't been excessive regulation, it has often been inefficient or ineffective regulation that ends up being very costly to those who are subjected to it unwillingly.
One prominent example is minimum wage regulations. While the intent behind these may have been good, what they've ended up becoming are huge burdens to businesses that are already on the brink. It's not economically viable for a business to pay somebody far more than the value they're providing. What is the end result? Fewer jobs, and a lot more focus on automating away low-end jobs. This actually leaves people worse off than they were before the minimum wage regulations were put into place!
Affirmative action regulations are another example, where people who just aren't qualified to do a particular job end up getting the job anyway over much more qualified candidates. This results in a decease in service quality, if not more disastrous results.
There are other examples, of course.
The main thing to keep in mind is that the people subjected to all of these regulations finally have enough. The regulations are so stifling, often without any clear benefit, that people rebel against them. These victims of over-regulation and bad regulation end up voting for politicians who vow to get rid of regulation. And it's not at all difficult for these politicians to perhaps go overboard. They won't get rid of just certain problematic regulations. They'll get rid of as many regulations as possible!
None of this would have happened if leftists hadn't kept pushing more and more regulations, especially as they got more and more unreasonable about it. Most people are fine with sensible regulations. But when leftists take it overboard, it often ends up resulting in the repealing of all or nearly all regulations, regardless of whether they're good or bad.
Regulatory capture: when control of the the government rules for an industry are captured by that industry itself.
So it's de facto a program that entrenched industry leaders use to protect themselves.
and cars sold by volkswagen...
UL seems to do just fine as a private non-profit.
The appliance aspect of Energy Star has a small impact. What's really at the heart of it is the energy efficiency program. I have reduced my home's energy consumption 40% by following Energy Star for Homes standards. I made my money back on the cost of repairs in the first year. I've been doing this and teaching it for years.
While I can certainly appreciate cutting budgets in the name of reducing federal spending, this one IS effective and is a direct financial benefit to homeowners. 40% of the world's energy is used by buildings, the largest piece of the pie. As someone who has studied energy efficiency for a long time, I know that energy efficiency programs like this one are far more effective at reducing emissions and cutting operating costs than any other strategy such as renewable energy or switching to natural gas. Think of it this way, how many PV panels would it take to power your house? Probably a lot, right? And it would take forever to pay back. Now what if you reduced your energy demand significantly through energy efficiency? Less panels, right? If you want renewables to be cost effective, the greatest efficiency has to be gained first.
And yes, it is about safety. Homes with combustion appliances are checked for CO spillage and negative chimney drafts that could allow uncombusted gas to accumulate in the home.
It's one of the few things the EPA does that's useful and efficient. Setting a national standard is well within the things that government should do. Compared to all the really wasteful things they do this should certainly be kept.
Nutrition labels on food were heavily fought by industry but that was the past when corruption (regulatory capture) was not as bad as it has been in recent decades.
Today, food labels wouldn't be implemented at all. Voluntary industry marketing labels on some products is all one would have. If it was passed in the 90s, we would have something like Energy Star where industry does it without punishment or oversight and the labels would be as inaccurate and unregulated as Energy Star is.
Do keep in mind that VW just was punished in a significant way (mostly because they are foreign) for cheating on recent regulations. So these things are not entirely useless.
I'm sure Energy Star doesn't cost that much; it is mostly an excuse to KILL it. Just like defunding PBS saves less than a pentagon rounding error. Hell, the Star Wars Program is STILL being funded (under less stupid names) and STILL doesn't work and costs about 50billion which is about the same amount Trump is asking to increase military spending.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
It is of course a mere coincidence that this highly successful and entirely voluntary program, which has saved US consumers billions of dollars over its existence, far more than the actual program cost or cost to manufacturers, was also responsible for rating several of Don The Con's properties as being in the bottom 10% of all rated structures from an energy efficiency standpoint, just because those structures happened to be highly inefficient with their energy usage. That got the program on his Enemies List. http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/25/...
Long? What do you mean the signature at the bottom of every comment I post on Slashdot is too lo
Some of the machines we sell, have sleep timers. The come from the factory set at 1 minute. We USE to set them to
240 minutes (four hours). But nooooooo...can't do that! Now the software won't let us go any higher than 60 minutes
and if the super sleep mode kicks in, you have to wait for the machine to boot back up which take another minute or
two. We use to be able to disable the super sleep mode since most customers HATED it, but it isn't what the customer
wants.
Nor does he have an agenda, plans, or power: all he has is Presidential authority. He's doing exactly what the GOP, Bannon, Kusher, Putin, the Kochs, the Mercers, or whoever else with actual power tells him to do. He's a puppet. All he actually cares about is feeding his narcissism and exploiting his position for personal gain.
Stop attributing anything to him, he deserves neither credit nor blame.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04...
Yet another bit of crookedry that would have right-wingers rioting in the streets if Hillary did it.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That's why he wants those EnergyStar labels to go away. The corporations will make more profit if they don't have to sell energy-efficient appliances. Then there will be more demand for power, and subsequently more demand for coal. It all makes sense when you look at it from the viewpoint of greedy corporations.
Small price to pay for keeping a lady who deleted emails out of office!
The big manufacturers sell their products world wide. This means that they need to make them comply with the various standards that exist in different parts of the world. The EU market is about the same size as the USA one. The EU has its own energy standards and labelling, if the EPA Energy Star goes away in the USA they could simply display the EU ones in the USA. USA consumers would quickly learn what it was about, the manufacturers would save costs by not having to have their stuff tested twice; everyone wins. Going for global standards is where we will probably end up sooner or later anyway.
Everything I can find that actually cites a source indicates that the President's proposal directs the EPA to look into the possibility of spinning it off to operate like Underwriters Laboratories (UL) operates - with actual testing, and self-funding rather than taxpayer funded and government run.
Nothing stops them from setting standards as a private sector entity.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The best forms of government regulation is both voluntary and simply provides information to consumers to help them make an informed choice in the market.
What's next? Doing away with food labeling? I'm absolutely sure they will try.
This is the type of government program I like to see. The government is not mandating which appliance to buy. They are making a measuring stick available, and mandating that you can't lie about it. The "founding father's" made the central government responsible for setting weights and measures for a good reason. A fair market is impossible without agreed upon measures.
I wish they'd taken the same approach with the FDA. Instead of saying, "Drug X may not be sold", or "Drug Y may only be used for this specific application.", technology would have advanced much quicker and cheaper if they published a registry saying, "We have determined that Drug X has shown efficacy for this application." I'd still need my doctor, but he (and the army of bureaucrats blocking him) wouldn't be the gateway to which drug I could buy.
If Trump wants to cut the budget, make the FDA follow the Energy Star Program. Make the Dept of Education an advisory board ("We have studied the problem, and found these remedies work in those situations. Now, localities can more intelligently work out your own education programs.").
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
UL is a joke.
I worked at a large appliance manufacturer. Part of the UL stamp is having a processor check itself. The embedded software has to have a thread that launches every few milliseconds to have the processor check it's own operation.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Its a waste of time anyways.
Personal computers are mostly laptops or battery powered some way or another - the energy wastage problem for personal computers solved it self.
Most new appliances are about as efficient as they'll ever get - LCD TV, Fridge, Dishwasher, LED light bulbs etc, why do I need a sticker on it?
The big energy guzzling things like furnaces/gas/electric/heatpumps, water heaters and the like, again the consumer looks for things that'll save them money in the end. I know I do. None of that stuff has the energy star on it anyways.
What is the point of that sticker now? its about as useful as the "Intel Inside" or Windows stickers on laptops.
Personally most people never paid much attention to those stickers and the benefits of energy saving products won't go away just because the Energy Star rating does. The world is demanding this type of product so it is made and identified through marketing. Why should government pay for this? If anything its the product manufactures who should pay a fee to be certified and not have any government funding.
Every Day Trump does something ruinous for the country's long term health. He's most likely going to be dead in a decade whether by a patriotic FBI agent, or a heart attack from being old, fat, and eating unhealthy crap all the time. He doesn't care if he's destroying the country- he's already lived his life.
Silly troll.
I don't respond to AC's.
they are so often wrong and too trivial to worry about.
Right there with you on the wrong part, but there is nothing so trivial that it will not be worried about on slashdot.
All regulations have unintended consequences. And the best intentions sometimes backfire. For example, take the new European standard for electrical consumption of vacuum cleaners. In essence they've now banned the larger models. But it's not going to save any electricity. Now with smaller models that can't create as much vacuum and thus induce a much smaller CFM of air flow. Hence they work less efficiently and more slowly. So any electrical efficiency gains are offset by the poorer performance overall, requiring longer use and just as much electricity. Besides that, even if all things were equal, the greater electrical use (and subsequent CO2 generation) from the bigger vacuums probably can't even be quantified for most people since vacuum cleaners are used so infrequently compared to computers, lights, heating, and other electrical devices.
This is, in my mind, a clear example of well-intentioned Energy Star -like programs and regulations that just don't apply well to many things and shouldn't. And this is why people, including trump supporters, get so upset with government interference in their lives. Most people I know aren't stupid. If they buy a new freezer, they do want to save money and energy by buying the newer, more efficient models. I think this would continue even without Energy Star, should it ever disappear entirely.
Besides that, if you really want to change things, a carbon tax is better than efficiency regulations. If the true cost of energy is passed on to consumers you can bet they'll make different choices and drive demand for energy-efficient devices. Rather than set fuel efficiency targets, tax a vehicle's registration based on its fuel consumption. Lets people have the freedom to drive an old, less-efficient vehicle if they wish, as long as they are willing to pay for it.
Sure direct regulation is easier for the government, but it's not always the best way. And it always has unintended consequences and leads to regulatory capture of the market by a few large companies.
Neat.
I think the real issue here is that leftists are learning what happens when they push people too far: a backlash happens, and it's often more severe than they anticipated.
I think the real issue is that you've never told a toddler to pick up after themselves. It turns in a tantrum with ease.
The fact is, automation has always killed jobs. The Luddites didn't arise because of minimum wage, they arose because their jobs were being taken from them because of the machine looms.
And exploiting laborers happened even in professional sports, there is a reason that those fields tend to have strong player's unions, because they had to fight against management trying to keep their pay down.
Sorry, but all the protests and resistance? It has been around since the first king told people they couldn't use an open out fire in a wooden hut.
GAO submitted a few non-existant products to test the EnergyStar program. Some notable results:
Gas-Powered Alarm Clock:
Product description indicated the clock is the size of a small generator and is powered by gasoline.
Product was approved by Energy Star without a review of the company Web site or questions of the claimed efficiencies.
Geothermal Heat Pump:
Energy use data reported was more efficient than any product listed as certified on the Energy Star Web site at the time of submission.
High-energy efficiency data was not questioned by Energy Star.
Product is eligible for federal tax credits and state rebate programs.
Computer Monitor
Product was approved by Energy Star within 30 minutes of submission.
Private firms contacted GAO’s fictitious firm to purchase products based on participation in the Energy Star program.
Refrigerator:
Self-certified product was submitted, qualified, and listed on the Energy Star Web site within 24 hours.
Product is eligible for federal tax credits and state rebates.
Welcome to a world run by deplorables
The corporations will make more profit if they don't have to sell energy-efficient appliances.
They already don't have to sell energy-efficient appliances. Energy Star is a voluntary program.
The Energy Star program costs almost nothing. There are zero government employees actually testing products. Instead, it is done on the "honor system" where manufacturers can voluntarily test their own products and then use the official label. Compliance is enforced by consumer groups and competitors rather than proactive government action. 3rd party testing has shown that this all works pretty well.
It is cost-effective, non-coercive, and works. So it makes sense to eliminate it since it doesn't fit the right-wing narrative of bloated and ineffective government. We can use the money saved to buy another windshield wiper for the F-35.
Rather than set fuel efficiency targets, tax a vehicle's registration based on its fuel consumption. Lets people have the freedom to drive an old, less-efficient vehicle if they wish, as long as they are willing to pay for it.
In the US this is already taking place. It's called a "gasoline tax", and both the feds and the states have their hands in the pockets of those who buy gas. Buy more gas, you pay more in taxes.
You just want another tax to do the same thing, as if one tax isn't enough.
I think the real issue here is that trolls are learning what happens when they push people too far: a backlash happens, and it's often more severe than they anticipated.
We've seen a lot of trolling pushed by russian types over the past 50 years. None of this has been good. But a lot of it has been excessive. When it hasn't been excessive trolling, it has often been disinformation that ends up being very costly to those who are subjected to it unwillingly and unknowingly.
FTFY.
"Off with its head!"
Well, except that Shakespeare was there before Carrol: "If? Protector of this damned strumpet, talk'st thou to me of ifs? Thou art a traitor! Off with his head!"
And frankly, Trump makes for a great Richard III impersonation.
The embedded software has to have a thread that launches every few milliseconds to have the processor check it's own operation.
Regular integrity checks are a normal part of embedded system design. This is a reasonable requirement, although I have never seen it done with actual context-switching "threads", so I am assuming you are using that word loosely. Of course, you still need a separate WDT ... which UL also requires in many cases.
Educate yourself. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/04/5-facts-about-the-minimum-wage/
Government regulation is there to do things that businesses wouldn't do on their own, but are needed for a functioning society. It may be true that the needs of Rural people are different than the needs of Urban people, it doesn't justify the libertarian approach to things.
I can finally find a market for my shale-oil powered refrigerator!
Except that this program actually got companies "in line" without costing the taxpayer an arm and a leg.
You're right though, there have been some fake products put through, and it seems that the EPA responded in kind -- requiring 3rd party verification
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Star
Also, it looks like the tax credit they DO get are for a limited time only and primarily for houses: https://www.energystar.gov/about/federal_tax_credits and solar power installations (which are cheaper and safe than building another coal or nuke)
The Government Accountability Office submitted 20 bogus products and 15 got an energy star rating. I particularly like the gas powered alarm clock.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to/a5442/4350335/
Audit finds issues with Energy Star:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/earth/26star.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125912545
Except that this program actually got companies "in line"
Got "in line" with what? It is just another label people ignore.
The thing of it is, that energy efficiency doesn't matter once you bought the thing that has its "Energy Star " sticker on it. Nobody calculates that the Fridge you bought 20 years ago is actually costing you money, because its energy usage is twice as much as what is available now. The new "Energy Star" stickered Fridge is twice as efficient as your "Energy Star" stickered Fridge in your kitchen. Most people think they are the same sticker, meaning the same thing "energy efficient" and relative efficiency is nothing but "fancy math stuff"
And "Energy Star" has done nothing to reduce the vampire energy loss due to everything having a damn clock in it, and the blue LED lightbulb, slowly sucking power unknown and unseen because, like the waste in federal spending, it is so small as to simply be an "rounding error".
So, I reject the idea that it is "in line" with anything actually useful, like forcing people to get rid of their 2nd (3rd) Fridge sitting in the Garage, from 30 years ago, which still has the "This unit costs $20 year to operate" Energy Star Sticker still on it. Even though it is more like $20 / month now, 30 years later.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Indeed. Sounds like someone doesnt know shit about embedded system design. Their brain would explode if they learned misra-c or do178b/c requirements.
But it does ensure a playing field in which consumers can compete rather than just observe. Your dollar doesn't represent competition when costs are hidden, and that defeats the purpose of a fair market.
That's a very naïve view of reality. For every business that's on the brink, there are hundreds that are doing well, and many that are turning record profits. A business that cannot afford to pay its employees a living wage is almost certainly doomed anyway, so allowing it to pay a less than a living wage is just delaying the inevitable slightly. The business will fail. Let it fail.
Keeping a business on life support by letting it pay a subminimum wage doesn't help anyone in the long term, and doesn't help very many people even in the short term. But allowing businesses to pay a subminimum wage does hurt people who work for all those other companies that actually are profitable, because given the opportunity to pay their employees less, they will do so.
More to the point, if that is the only business providing jobs in a particular community, then that community is doomed. Keeping the business alive a little longer by depressing wages just encourages people to stay in the doomed community and make less and less money, thus making them less and less able to afford to move to a community that isn't doomed. So continuing to pay those employees a wage actually ends up hurting those employees more than it helps, at least in the aggregate, though the individual employees might not believe it at the time.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The US currently has 10 aircraft carriers in service, and are building 2 more.
How about we reduce that number from 12 to 5?
That way we could fight a war on 2 fronts with 2 carriers each (like Japan and Germany were), and have one left over for relief aid and support, like we did with Haiti.
This sounds like a low flow toilet all over again
One thing I hate about energy star ratings is that it shows a scale based on a range of unspecified other devices, meaning that it can also compare what you bought against some things that may be more prosumer/industrial where the person doesn't care much about energy usage, so pretty much any small TV/appliance can claim to be highly energy efficient in comparison even though it's not necessarily that energy efficient compared to other devices in its size class.
Since the EPA is being destroyed from within, we need a private (preferably non-profit) company to rate products, services and companies as to their environmental impact, so consumers who want clean, breathable air, poison-free and potable water, and a world where catastrophic climate change isn't going to make existing cities uninhabitable within the next generation or two...
That way we can make corporations act as if the way they behave, vis a vis the environment, will have a DIRECT impact in the immediate on their precious bottom lines because they DO, since the EPA isn't going to be doing it anymore.
Without the teeth (or will) to enforce environmental rules and regulations, or when the so-called "president" (hahaha) and his henchtards are busy eliminating them so their corporate owners can make even more money... we desperately need something like this.
... start mass-producing my computer displays which directly produce pixels by burning various fuels and other combustible substances!
And you can buy a laptop on DealDash for $11.
It costs "almost nothing" only if you look at the financial impact on a select part of the economy (the government) rather than on the economy as a whole. To truly measure the cost of Energy Star, you need to measure how much it's costing manufacturers to design to comply with the Energy Star standards. Because they're passing those costs onto their customers in the form of higher prices, which means that cost is coming out of your and my pocket just as if it were taxes.
(Likewise, the way DealDash works is that they charge for each bid everyone places on an auction. So the cost of the $11 laptop is actually the $11 winning bid + how much everyone trying to win it paid in bidding fees. See how deceptive you can be if you don't include all the costs something has on the entire system?)
There are Energy Star standards which are totally worth it (e.g. average electricity cost of appliances like refrigerators which are not always-on). And there are Energy Star standards which totally don't work (e.g. auto-dimming TVs to save power). You need to be able to pick out the wheat from the chaff. Basically, you need an Energy Star for programs like Energy Star, which estimates the cost of having the standard vs. the benefit of having it. And axes any standards which simply aren't worth it and cost more in paperwork and expense than the benefit they produce.
you need to measure how much it's costing manufacturers to design to comply with the Energy Star standards.
It is a voluntary program, so if the manufacturers aren't getting their money's worth, they can just decline to participate.
One thing I hate about energy star ratings is that it shows a scale based on a range of unspecified other devices
You're doing it wrong. Just ignore the comparison, and instead look at the "annual energy cost". If one item costs $100 more, but costs $20 less in energy use, then you should buy it if you expect to use it for at least five years.
According to data from the World Bank (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC), US electric energy consumption per person (kWh per capita) was 7,517 kWh per capita in 1971 and grew by 72.6 percent to 12,973 kWh per capita in 2014. Energy efficiency programs do not decrease total energy usage. More efficient air conditioners allow more people to live and work in warmer climates. More efficient refrigerators allow more people to own bigger refrigerators, etc. Plus, additional energy savings from other appliances that we do not use more, allows us to use other energy appliances, microwaves, cable boxes, routers, rechargeable cell phones, tablets, and laptops, etc., without concern our monthly energy bill will get too high.
This sounds like a low flow toilet all over again
Deja poo?
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Almost no government spending is unnecessary or unjustified. The problem is the total spending. And to reduce the total spending, some programs that create something good must be prioritized away. The question every government program should as be asked is not "is this good". Rather "do we really create good value for the money spent?", "can someone else do this better?", "could these money create more value spent elsewhere?" etc.
Europe, Aus, NZ, Canada, Japan and Taiwan all support the programme.
Rather than set fuel efficiency targets, tax a vehicle's registration based on its fuel consumption. Lets people have the freedom to drive an old, less-efficient vehicle if they wish, as long as they are willing to pay for it.
In the US this is already taking place. It's called a "gasoline tax", and both the feds and the states have their hands in the pockets of those who buy gas. Buy more gas, you pay more in taxes.
You just want another tax to do the same thing, as if one tax isn't enough.
The "one" you refer to is more like "one half". We haven't increased the tax in proportion to increase in price, it was a fixed amount, and we used to up in every couple years, until 1993. And so we have crummy roads because few states have the ability to pay for them. http://www.npr.org/2014/12/08/...
Even if you don't believe in science, not raising gas taxes to keep up the roads is stupid.
I'm fine with raising gas taxes to pay for roads.
Not bike lanes.
Not light rail.
Not streetcars.
Not pensions for people who retired from the highway district 20 years ago.
Roads. For cars. To drive on.
It's called a watchdog, and UL should definitely require it. Is this the only reason you have to indicate that this rather well-respected set of standards is a joke?
I'm fine with raising gas taxes to pay for roads.
Are you? Good, because it'd probably save you money in car repairs and reduced frustration.
Congress, not so much on board with it.
Not bike lanes.
Did somebody tell you that Bicycle Lanes are a major cost of highway expenses? They aren't. Furthermore, bicycle lanes can actually improve YOUR driving experience, by removing bicyclists from the driving lanes, and even adding additional width to roads in the event of some other emergency.
Add in the health benefits, and it's a net gain for everybody. Yet you resent paying for it. Why?
Not light rail.
Not streetcars.
Oh my, well don't worry, light rail funding can come from other sources, and it does offer significant benefits in reducing congestion and pollution. Same with streetcars.
But do you resent them? Why? Do you hate improving things so much?
Not pensions for people who retired from the highway district 20 years ago.
Roads. For cars. To drive on.
Roads need people to pave them, and yes, keeping up the obligations to previous employed persons is part of the duties of many agencies. That's a contract. Breaking it, just because you resent paying for it? That's kinda selfish, it seems.
And pointless, the fact is, the employees today will want the same treatment, and your taxes will pay for it too. They don't labor for free, you know. And if you start breaking promises to retirees, they're going to be very sketchy with you.
Look, all you've got is petty resentments and minor grievances, but you don't even have numbers. Would you be able to produce amounts for lightrail, bicycle, and streetcar funding that made up the gap in the highway spending?
The "one" you refer to is more like "one half".
No, it is actually at least two -- state and federal -- and some people pay three (city). In two counties in Oregon, you are also paying a COUNTY gas tax. When I said "one tax", I meant "one kind of tax".
We haven't increased the tax in proportion to increase in price, it was a fixed amount, and we used to up in every couple years, until 1993.
You know, it is pretty easy to google this stuff and see that you are wrong. Oregon, for one, increased their tax rate in 2011, and according to the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia: "While most fuel taxes were initially levied as a fixed number of cents per gallon, as of 2016, nineteen states and District of Columbia have fuel taxes with rates that vary alongside changes in the price of fuel, the inflation rate, vehicle fuel-economy, or other factors." Portland added yet another hand to the pocket-dipping by creating their own gas tax that took effect on Jan 1 of this year. New Jersey increased their gas tax by 23 cents a gallon (not TO 23cpg, BY 23cpg) in 2016. No increases? Hmmmm....
And so we have crummy roads because few states have the ability to pay for them.
We have crummy roads because costs for road construction have skyrocketed and we have poor project management.
Even if you don't believe in science,
Pure flamebait.
Sure the rated products may use less energy but why can't Consumer eports fill the same function and att he same time tell you if the product will do the job and last longer the warranty.
When Trump puts up the wall, don't forget to put a roof on too, the rest of us don't want the pollution.
The only problem being there is absolutely no enforced compliance. As long as a company pays their dues they can stick whatever the hell they want on that sticker with no worries about any type of blowback seeing no one from Energy Star is actually checking their numbers.
In one round of tests from an outside lab they found that energy star ratings were on average 35-50% off the actual energy used. As it exists and has always existed it's just a federally run marketing scheme and nothing more.
It effectively the same as allowing Coke and Pepsi to just make up the calorie count on their products out of thin air and then praise them for including calorie information.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
drop Rolling Stone as a source of "News" unless you also count idiots like the InfoWars crew as "News". Rolling Stone has an approx 50year history of leftwing slant.
Yeah, some older TEA Party people have demanded the government get out of Medicare - but that's just average folks not being very precise with their language. Back when Obamacare was being pushed, it included a massive transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare to Obamacare. This outraged a lot of older Americans who'd paid into Medicare for many years and were now seeing the government siphon the money away to people it was not earmarked for. The government was actively looting the program that these people depend upon for their lives, and their critics were playing word games. Drop it. It's dishonest and you either know it or you are not as well informed as you pretend to be.
The scooter argument is very similar. I have relatives who complained loudly about that program; they were angry that taxes were so high and that there were scam artists out there running ads on TV offering people "free" scooters (billed directly to Medicare) in a scam that just transferred mountains of money to those scooter companies, often by duping elderly people into assisting in the heist. Ultimately the Federal government agreed and it cracked down on the scam, which is why we all are no longer being subjected to all those TV ads for "free" motorized chairs.
In both cases, government was so big and so sloppy and so dishonest that it was not doing its most basic functions and was instead either directly doing bad, or assisting others in doing bad and government was not being sufficiently responsible because it was somebody else's money.
It's just as important to observe WHAT is (or is not) being regulated as to observe the details of those regulations.
For example: Your computer monitor is regulated, and your smart phone is not (because it runs on a battery and the manufacturer will limit its power consumption to get long run-times as a feature)..... but you probably use the phone more than the monitor and yet the phone is only doing what it does with the support of a massive telco infrastrusture plus servers at Apple or Google doing all sorts of stuff like speech processing. In short, your cell phone looks like a power sipper but is actually a power hog, consuming as much energy (or more) at those remote locations as a dorm fridge.
The bigger problem with Energy Star is that it is a scam. It's an attempt by government to get people to use less energy to mask the fact that we no longer produce the amount of energy and at the prices we could, per consumer. If we were still a free market economy, we would be getting quantity discounts for using large amounts of power, but now that we are a fascist economy built on government-business "partnerships", government management, and with planned shortages, we have to ration. The way we hide the rationing from the public is by forcing manufacturers of products to make them use less, which resticts consumer choices, but we distract consumers from noticing this. If a consumer tries to use exactly the same amount of electricity to light and heat his home that his dad used in the 1960s or '70s, we hit him with "progressive" fees (you pay MORE per kilowatthour if you consume more than the government wants you to - the opposite of the quantity discounts his dad got) to force him to cut back (because we are actually rationing electricity now).
> We can use the money saved to buy another windshield wiper for the F-35.
FYI: The F-35 does not have windshield wipers :-)
Most people I know aren't stupid.
Citation required,
Just WHO do you think IS stupid? Below intelligence? Ignorant? Biased?
Oh, right, it's "someone else" TM,
Doesn't matter: there's a factory in Wisconsin making them.
I never think much about Energy Star, because the biggest consumers of electricity in a home are usually: air conditioners, water heaters, and refrigerators. When your A/C breaks, you're going to base the decision on a lot of things; but in one case there was literally only one type of A/C that would fit in my unit. In my current case, I'm in the unusual situation of not consuming much energy for cooling because evaporative cooling works here--it only uses electricity for the blower.
Water heaters and electric heaters are used around here, but since they're heaters the efficiency of the device itself is actually irrelevant. It's the insulation that *surrounds* a heater that makes it efficient or not, and that's obviously not part of the Energy Star rating on the device itself. The water heater here benefits from being on the south side of the house. During the summer it probably doesn't use much power at all... the water coming out of the cold tap is warm already until it runs for a bit!
Energy star ratings on the fridge might be useful... but I've never actually bought a fridge. I've always had one when I moved in. I'm 49 and I've never bought one, except the little dorm fridge in college. They're that durable. As long as the IoT bastards keep their hands off them, they'll probably keep lasting 30+ years. I'm given to understand this has something to do with the cooling fluid also acting as a lubricant, thus making the sealed cooling cycle self-lubricating and durable.
Then, almost by definition, it is worthless
And yet it works in exactly the way Libertarians are telling us things will work: companies put an agreed-on label on their products, they have an incentive to check unreasonable-sounding claims from their competitors as do consumer groups, and there is redress through the courts (and bad publicity) if anyone is caught cheating. For once, it's a free market solution that is working with a minimal amount of government intervention.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
companies put an agreed-on label on their products, they have an incentive to check unreasonable-sounding claims from their competitors as do consumer groups
I have NO problem with this. None. Zip. Zero.
What is NOT needed, is government program to do so. Consumer Reports does a great service, and is way more effective than government would be doing the exact same job. AND they aren't influenced by donations to political campaigns. The problem I have is "Government MUST do it, because nobody else will" mentality.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
"We can use the money saved to buy another windshield wiper for the F-35."
So the pilot can have something to do while it's grounded due to the plane's inability to fly in the rain.
This isn't direct regulation so huge multi paragraph non-sequitur you have there. This is a standards and registration body. It won't ban any European vacuums. And you want a tax instead? In the name of less intrusive government? Really?
"If a carbon tax is passed on to consumers you can bet they'll make different choices..."
Only if the customer can make a choice. Not everything is a commodity and the carbon tax may be marginal for a specialized good where other factors are much more important. Indeed if the carbon tax is not burdensome then it will be marginal for everything. The customer may not have a choice. If you tax electrical power then there is no competition for the power company so they would simply pass the cost and ignore any choice due to the tax because it makes little difference to them.
The auto example is typical of carbon tax loonies. You really haven't thought it out. What if customer intends very few miles traveled. Shouldn't you tax the gas instead as that is where the carbon is and the use will be perfectly metered by taxing the gas.
Same with electrical items. They may be powered by solar, wind, nuclear, methane, or coal at any given point in time or some of each mixed from different sources. How would a carbon tax address that? How would you tax a freezer sold in the Pacific Northwest that will be powered mostly by water and nuclear? What information would the customer have to get the most efficient product with your tax nonsense? Pure brain mush is what you are presenting.
You say a program involving appliances would continue. This highlights the incredibly vacuous mindset of the Trump supporting loons. Why destroy something that is needed? How exactly would such a program magically reoccur after this destructive action? Would it perhaps be good to have an impartial referee with authority such as say a GOVERNMENT in charge of the new effort? Basically you destroy human effort then assume "somebody" will do it anyway. Well "somebody" already did it and you wish it destroyed even though you recognize the need. Un Friggen Believable.
The whole tax into obeying is onerous and sociopathic. It is manipulative where accommodation is much better. The energy star program is accomodation that places information in the hands of the customer. Is it perfect? Of course not. Nothing is. But it is miles better than what you suggest. It is pretty much a model program.
One prominent example is minimum wage regulations. While the intent behind these may have been good, what they've ended up becoming are huge burdens to businesses that are already on the brink. It's not economically viable for a business to pay somebody far more than the value they're providing. What is the end result? Fewer jobs, and a lot more focus on automating away low-end jobs.
If a business can only exist by paying its permanent, full-time employees less than a living wage, then maybe that business shouldn't exist? We hear the same argument from the produce growers who claim they have to pay illegal immigrants dollars a day under the table, otherwise "food prices will rise." Well maybe the food prices should rise then. We should pay the actual costs.
What, are you nuts? We need to use MORE energy! Burn more coal. Create more coal mining jobs. No more of this job-killing energy conservation!
</sarcasm>
J
companies put an agreed-on label on their products, they have an incentive to check unreasonable-sounding claims from their competitors as do consumer groups
I have NO problem with this. None. Zip. Zero.
What is NOT needed, is government program to do so. Consumer Reports does a great service, and is way more effective than government would be doing the exact same job. AND they aren't influenced by donations to political campaigns. The problem I have is "Government MUST do it, because nobody else will" mentality.
Actually, for Consumer Reports (and Underwriter's Labs) to work, they do need a government program(three points for your House if you can figure out what!), they are influenced by donations(check out UL's history, it is full of some scary stuff, and CR isn't that much better), and the problem the rest of us have, is that we expect the government to bow to our demands and serve our interests. Sorry, but that may include some things you don't like. Since you don't have an absolute veto, I guess you'll have to live with it. If you can stand it. You probably can't. You're inclined to whine over any number of government expenses and expenditures, wringing your hands at the temerity of it all.
But really, the worst part, is you have no idea what the DOE has done, or any number of other energy regulating programs across the globe, or any number of safety codes. They have taken products off the market. They have ensured consumers have sources of information. They have prevented a great deal of harm.
Rather than does nothing, it's done a lot. You, like Rick Perry, don't even know.
But you forgot that the outlawing of the big vacuums wasn't done for "total energy efficiency" -- it was done because large cities (eg, London) were having problems with surge demands (everybody vacuuming at 3PM so the house was neat when the partner got home).
I'd prefer energy star labelling to a carbon tax -- if there is no label, how do I know which vacuum is more energy efficient (you end up with all manner of things seen on shop-vacs - 14.7A? [really??] / 21 peak hp [not on a 110 outlet you don't] -- much like the boomboxes of the 80's with 1200W PMPO (compared to my measly PA amp that's 800W RMS)). I supposed I will get taxed on it later (I pay the power bill), but without a "this uses 21KWh/year which is on the high end", I have no idea how to make a better decision (unless it comes with a 30A twist-lock cord -- that'd be a dead giveaway).