Enlarge / Portable air conditioners. (credit: Your Best Digs)
Nonprofit consumer and environmental groups as well as 11 states sued the Department of Energy (DOE) today for failing to enact energy efficiency standards (PDF) promulgated by the Obama administration. The standards apply to portable air conditioners, uninterruptible power supplies, air compressors, walk-in coolers and freezers, and commercial packaged boilers.
The debacle began back in April when New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and officials from 10 other states demanded that newly-confirmed Energy Secretary Rick Perry enact energy efficiency rules for ceiling fans. Those rules were finalized in the last days of the Obama Administration and were set to take effect March 20, 2017. Perry delayed the date that the ceiling-fan rules were to take effect and looked set to delay or ignore five other energy efficiency rules for the air conditioner and power-supply group as well. Those efficiency standards were set to be published after the ceiling-fan rules were published, on March 15, 2017.
Schneiderman and the other attorneys general filed an appellate court petition asking for intervention in the ceiling-fan matter. The state prosecutors then sent a notice of an intent to sue the DOE if it didn’t enact the second group of energy efficiency rules within 60 days.
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