Starting a New Energy Diet

By JEFFREY BALL

Get ready to make an attitude adjustment, brought to you by the federal government.
Through sweeping new environmental policies, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress are planning an attack on the country's polluting, consumptive ways. The strategy involves a good deal of education, while rewarding good behavior and penalizing the bad. But whether faced with the soft pitch or the hard sell, some Americans might not be buying.
New taxes and mandates, combined with billions of dollars in incentives, would alter almost every facet of Americans' lives.

As a result of the policies, cars might be smaller, houses could have fewer rooms and consumers could see higher electricity bills.
Crucial details remain fuzzy: how quickly the shift to a more-efficient America would take place, and how much it would cost. But the goal is to prod Americans to curb their energy consumption more sharply than they have since the early 1980s -- and more fundamentally than they have in the country's history.
By almost any measure, Americans lead the world in energy use. "We use so much energy, but we misuse it," Steven Chu, President Barack Obama's energy secretary, said in an interview.
Mr. Chu, a physicist, said the administration intends to use a combination of policy and rhetoric to convince Americans to use less energy. "There are various ways to alter behavior," he said.
Much of the administration's strategy relies on the power of education. As a candidate last year, Mr. Obama told Americans they could help curb energy use by keeping their car tires inflated. His comment drew derision from critics who noted that studies suggest proper tire inflation would trim energy use only marginally. Mr. Obama's response: Every little bit helps.
As president, Mr. Obama has proposed raising fuel-economy standards in cars. The new rules would promote technology like dashboard gauges that provide drivers a real-time readout of fuel economy.

Obama's Energy Bill Set Before the House1:07
President Obama urges the House of representatives to pass the energy bill, which was designed to combat carbon pollution threatening the planet. Video courtesy of Fox News.
The administration's plan to modernize the nation's electrical grid incorporates features to teach people how to live less wastefully. The proposed "smart" grid, for example, might include sensors in houses that could shut off the lights in an empty room or temporarily turn off an air conditioner if the grid were overloaded.
The administration's economic-stimulus plan includes a raft of new, energy-related tax breaks, including a $1,500 credit for consumers who upgrade the efficiency of their homes. Under a new program dubbed "cash for clunkers," car owners who trade in their old gas-guzzlers for new, more-efficient vehicles will get government money to help defray the expense.
Much of this shift would be funded by what amount to new charges on fossil-fuel consumption. As part of an energy bill endorsed by the administration, companies would have to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Companies would pass on those costs to consumers in the form of higher energy prices, which are projected to increase on average by a couple of hundred dollars a year per household. Heavier users would pay more.
Raising prices is one of the most reliable ways to influence people's behavior, the administration has concluded. But breaking even small habits isn't easy.
In a bid to save electricity, Dallas lawyer and painter Arthur Blanchard earlier this year switched the light bulbs in his favorite reading lamp to compact fluorescents, the squiggly models that use a fraction of the power of the average incandescent bulb. It wasn't long before Mr. Blanchard, 82 years old, switched back to the old-style bulbs. The energy-efficient ones, he said, "just didn't give out enough light to read the paper by."
Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com