GAO says US failed on energy guidelines
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy has missed all 34 deadlines set by Congress for requiring energy efficiency standards on everything from home appliances to power transformers, auditors said yesterday.
Two-thirds of the deadlines remain unmet, many for more than a decade.
Because of the failures, consumers and corporations stand to pay tens of billions of dollars more for energy than they would have otherwise, the Government Accountability Office said.
It's "a blistering indictment of a culture of incompetence and delay," said Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who had a hand in crafting many of the efficiency requirements Congress has enacted over the years.
Representative John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who made the report public , said the delays cover many years, some of them back to the 1990s.
Still, many of the standards for appliances and other equipment have been in limbo since 2001 after a rush of regulations in the closing weeks of the Clinton administration, energy efficiency advocates said.
Of the 34 standards, covering 20 product categories, 11 have been completed although all of them from several months to five years late, the GAO said. The remaining 23 have yet to be completed, and some are expected to be 10 to 15 years late .
Andy Karsner, the department's assistant secretary in charge of energy efficiency programs, acknowledged that the department has been "simply abysmal" on meeting such deadlines. 