Delay on energy standards allowed to go on
A judge’s order directing the Trump administration to end its yearlong delay of new energy-efficiency standards for portable air conditioners, building heaters and other appliances has been put on hold by a federal appeals court.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco ruled Feb. 15 that Energy Secretary Rick Perry was violating his duties under federal law by refusing to enforce the new standards, issued by President Barack Obama’s Energy Department in December 2016 and aimed at combatting climate change.
Chhabria ordered Perry to publish the rules in the Federal Register, making them enforceable, within 28 days. But a panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco suspended Chhabria’s order last week until the court considers an appeal by the administration. The judges, Ronald Gould and Richard Tallman, ordered the proceedings expedited, with written arguments through mid-July and a hearing as soon as possible thereafter.
The standards would apply to floor-standing portable air conditioners, commercial boilers that heat office and apartment buildings, air compressors that power various tools, and battery chargers that provide backup power supplies for electronic products.
Obama’s Energy Department said the new rules would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 99 million tons over 30 years — the equivalent of taking 705,000 cars a year off the road — and save consumers and businesses $8.4 billion. The standards were due to take effect in March 2017, but Perry refused to publish them in the Federal Register, and argued in court that he had no obligation to do so.
Federal law requires the department to set energysaving standards for specific categories of appliances and then to update them every six years. The department last updated its standards for commercial boilers in 2009, but has no current standards for the other appliances, according to lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s action.
The suits were filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with 11 other states, New York City and Washington, D.C., and by a coalition of environmental groups.
They contended federal law required the Trump administration to put the rules into effect and then prohibited the administration from weakening the new standards. Perry’s department and the Air-Conditioning, Heating, & Refrigeration Institute, a trade group, argued that a new administration has authority to “continue to assess, modify or withdraw rules drafted by a previous administration.”