Obama urges higher efficiency standards for household appliances

• Barack Obama issues memo to US energy department• Standards could be implemented as soon as next August
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 February 2009 19.35 GMT

Barack Obama makes remarks to employees at the US department of energy in Washington DC today. Photograph: Ron Sachs/EPA
Barack Obama urged the energy department to adopt higher efficiency standards for household appliances that had been blocked for years by George Bush.
In a presidential memo, issued during a visit to the energy department meant to showcase Obama's commitment to the greening of the economy, the president called for new higher standards to be issued as early as next August.
The first round of higher standards would cover nine appliances, including ovens, lamps, micrwoaves, dishwashers and air conditioners. The directive applies to some 30 household and commercial electrical items."This will save consumers money. This will spur innovation and this will conserve tremendous amounts of energy," Obama said.
He was flanked by Steven Chu, the energy secretary who has long seen energy efficiency as a crucial part of the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The push for household energy efficiency was seen as a further sign of Obama's determination to break with Bush policy on the environment.
In another development, the Obama administration showed it would take a far more robust approach to enforcing environmental protection. A lawsuit filed by the justice department charged the Westar power company of Kansas with failing to meet its legal obligation to install the best available pollution controls on its coal-fired plant.
Obama also used the visit to try and sell his economic rescue plan, saying the package, now approaching $900bn, would help spur the growth of clean energy, with new well-paying jobs in the wind and solar power industries.Obama set aside some $30bn for energy efficiency measures in the economic rescue package now making its way through Congress, mainly modernising buildings.The presidential memo on efficiency would seek to end a logjam at the energy department. The new energy standards demanded by Obama today were long overdue.
Congress has been pushing for nearly three decades for higher standards on household products such as water heaters and refrigerators. But the energy department has regularly missed deadlines for imposing the new standards.
It was not immediately clear whether Obama's directive would also lead to a review and possible tightening of the standards under consideration by the energy department.The president said he asked the energy department to move ahead on those appliances that would produce the biggest savings for consumers.
The White House said the energy savings from the changes would save Americans $500bn on their electricity bills, or the equivalent of two years worth of emissions from all of America's coal-fired power plants over the course of 30 years.
In the justice department law suit, the Environmental Protection Agency notified Westar Power that it was in violation of pollution control requirements five years ago. However, under Bush, the EPA rarely followed up on enforcement.
The justice department said its suit was "part of a national initiative to stop illegal pollution from coal-fired power plants".
The move stoked expectations of similar actions against a number of other coal-fired plants.