BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
AB 1850 (Calderon) - Energy: appliance efficiency.
Amended: August 6, 2012 Policy Vote: EU&C 7-1
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: August 6, 2012
Consultant: Brendan McCarthy
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: AB 1850 would make several changes to the Energy
Commission's procedures for adopting energy efficiency standards
for appliances, both to the process in general and to a specific
energy efficiency standard for battery chargers.
Fiscal Impact: The Energy Commission is likely to experience
increased staff costs due to the need to collect new information
before adopting energy efficiency standards. Such additional
costs could be in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands
(General Fund).
Background: Under current law, the California Energy Commission
is required to adopt regulatory energy efficiency standards for
appliances sold in the state. Energy efficiency standards cannot
result in any added costs to consumers over the lifetime of the
appliance.
Under current law, once the Energy Commission has adopted an
energy efficiency standard, it cannot change that standard for
five years, unless another cost-effective standard for that
appliance is adopted.
In January of 2012, the Energy Commission adopted energy
efficiency standards for battery chargers, including a labeling
requirement to signify compliance. The standards for consumer
chargers go into effect February 1, 2013 and the standards for
industrial chargers go into effect on January 1, 2014.
The federal Department of Energy is currently considering energy
efficiency standards for battery chargers, including a labeling
requirement. The efficiency standards and labeling requirement
in the proposed federal rules are different from the recently
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adopted state standards. Under federal law, the federal
standards would preempt the state standards. The Energy
Commission considers the proposed federal regulations to be less
stringent that the state standards.
Proposed Law: AB 1850 would make several changes to the Energy
Commission's procedures for adopting energy efficiency standards
for appliances, both to the process in general and to a specific
standard.
Specifically, the bill:
Would prohibit enforcement of the labeling requirement for
battery chargers if the federal Department of Energy has
adopted federal standards by January 31, 2013 that would
take effect by July 1, 2013.
Would require that battery charger labeling regulations
adopted by the Energy Commission would remain in effect only
until federal regulations are adopted for those appliances.
Would authorizes the Energy Commission to change a
regulation within five years of adoption if it finds that
the regulation is no longer needed.
Would requires the Energy Commission, when adopting energy
efficiency standards, to rely on the most current data
available including data less than one year old, when
feasible.
Related Legislation: SB 1198 (Huff, Chapter 486, Statutes of
2010) delayed the implementation of energy efficiency standards
for televisions by six months, based on pending federal
standards.
Staff Comments: Under current practice, the Energy Commission
begins researching proposed energy efficiency standards well
before beginning the formal rulemaking process. This allows the
Energy Commission to begin the rulemaking process with a fairly
well developed proposal. In many cases, development of proposed
standards can take months or years before a formal standard is
proposed for adoption. As part of the process for considering
proposed standards, the Energy Commission collects a large
amount of information on products being sold in the marketplace,
the energy use of those projects, and the latest information on
potential energy efficiency improvements to those projects. By
requiring the Energy Commission to rely on information that is
less than one year old when adopting standards, the Commission
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will likely have to reacquire a large amount of information at
the outset of the rulemaking process - increasing staff costs.