CERC Backs Federal TV-Energy Standard Based on ‘Thorough Scientific Analysis’

CE retailers support a federal energy standard for TVs, but don’t agree that state efforts to prod federal action is the way to go, the CE Retailers Coalition told Connecticut lawmakers last week. Any federal standard should be based on “thorough scientific analysis, testing and due process,” the group said, and such a standard with a “sell-through option would lessen the logistical complexities, market dislocations and regional economic variables that would inevitably result” from the energy standard being weighed in Connecticut bill HB-5217.

"We appreciate the argument that regulatory efforts such as HB 5217 can help prompt action at the federal level but they can also frustrate progress,” CERC wrote Sen. John Fonfara, co-chair of the Senate Energy and Technology Committee, and Rep. Vickie Nardello, co-chair of the House Energy and Technology committee. “There is a more productive path to energy savings and that would be to adopt national standards as well as state, local and federal consumer incentives,” the group said. A national standard would also “work to eliminate the leakage” caused by the purchase of non-compliant TVs from neighboring states and through the Internet, it said.

CERC also backs the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed requirement of EnergyGuide labels for TVs, it said. Connecticut lawmakers should consider other initiatives to promote consumer adoption of green products and “green lifestyles, without resorting to inflexible and arbitrary mandates,” the group said. They include encouraging the use of smart power strips and smart home technologies that help manage and optimize power use throughout the home, pressing utilities to adopt smart grid technologies and adopting “additional tax and electric rate incentives” to encourage purchase of Energy Star products, it said.

CERC said if HB-5217 is adopted, the state would lose retail jobs and “economic activity, including sales tax receipts, would decline.” The measure would also restrict consumer choice of TVs in Connecticut, the group said. “The inevitable result will be to push value-oriented, price sensitive consumers to do their shopping in other states, or online.” “Artificially constraining mandates” on integrated DTV sets would force consumers to find features they want in additional products that would not only cancel any energy savings from the legislation but also create more “consumer ‘boxes’ that consume power and ultimately will have to recycled,” it said.