Legal Battle Over American Efficient Lighting Standards Heats Up

(Photo Credit: Karol Olson, Pixabay)

A federal judge recently ruled in favor of allowing the State of California’s updated lightbulb efficiency standards to take effect this year — despite efforts from two lighting industry associations to get the new rules blocked. The decision comes as the US Department of Energy works to roll back energy efficiency requirements for lightbulbs.

In February 2019, the DOE proposed exempting some types of light bulbs from federal efficiency standards scheduled to go into effect in 2020. Another proposal eliminated the requirement that certain incandescent and halogen bulb types be added to the energy-efficiency group this year. At the time, environmental groups projected that the federal changes would cost American consumers and businesses billions of dollars.

California’s rules were basically the same as the Obama-era update from 2017. Last November, the California Energy Commission adopted an energy conservation standard that removed incandescent and halogen bulbs from retailer shelves, Utility Dive’s Robert Walton explained. In response, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association and the American Lighting Association asked a federal judge to temporarily block the California standards.

“Retailers will be burdened with perfectly good product that is now illegal for sale in California,” the American Lighting Association’s vice president for government engagement Michael Weems said, according to the Associated Press’ Don Thompson.

US District Judge Kimberly Mueller of Sacramento found that California state regulators acted properly under exemptions granted by Congress, Thompson reported. “Congress recognized, among other things, California’s history of leadership in energy efficiency regulations,” the judge wrote.

Noah Horowitz, director of the Center for Energy Efficiency Standards at the Natural Resources Defense Council, praised the action. “Today’s decision keeps California at the forefront of the movement to resist the Trump Department of Energy’s efforts to tie Americans to the technology of the past,” he said.

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