CEA Again Slams DOE TV Test Procedure Rule, Urging Its Repeal
CEA used its comments in the Department of Energy’s request for information about reducing regulatory burdens to again press its case that DOE’s test procedure for measuring power consumption of TVs is “unnecessary,” and should be repealed. The test procedure…
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is “duplicative and problematic, and in the context of reducing regulatory burdens, CEA urges DOE to repeal its test procedure for TVs which was promulgated by final rule in October 2013,” CEA told DOE in comments Friday. “By mandating this test procedure despite stakeholder objections, DOE added to U.S. firms’ testing burdens, undermined the international and U.S. consensus standards process, undermined international harmonization, and created economic diseconomies with most of the rest of the world which relies on international standards.” CEA for years has stood by its criticism that DOE’s TV test procedure rulemaking was “wasteful and unnecessary in light of industry leadership and accomplishment on energy efficiency in this major product category” (see 1310280079). By mandating its own test procedure rather than incorporating CEA’s test standard by reference, as CEA had urged DOE to do, DOE “has tied everyone’s hands, limiting the ability of industry to maintain standards that benefit consumers and existing programs,” such as Energy Star and EnergyGuide, CEA has said. The test procedure rule can be “simply repealed without impairing the Department’s or other regulatory programs,” CEA said again Friday. Before the test procedure rule was promulgated, the Energy Star program “comfortably relied” on International Electrotechnical Commission/CEA standards “with minor divergences intended to clarify testing procedures,” it said. DOE’s test procedure for TVs “will become obsolete over time,” compared with IEC/CEA test procedures, “which evolve to technological realities and are revised,” CEA said. “DOE has never been able to keep up with the need to revise test procedures. Whatever initial separation there is between the U.S. and international test procedures would only be exacerbated over time. This will cause additional testing burdens to companies selling globally and will hinder innovation because new designs and technologies will be quickly incorporated in the IEC and CEA standards but may be blocked by a federal test procedure.”