Trump May Save Your Air Conditioner From the Deep State

From The Daily Signal.com (May 15):

It happens every spring—on the first hot day, homeowners switch on their air conditioners that have sat idle since September, cross their fingers, and pray they get cold air.

For those that don’t work, the owners know they’ll soon be on the hook for a repair costing hundreds of dollars or a replacement costing thousands.

But what most don’t know is that bureaucrats in Washington have been targeting home air conditioners for decades, and that their regulations are partly responsible for the high cost of cooling off.

Thankfully, the Trump administration is holding the line against any more such measures, but the deep state continues to quietly work on several of them.

Even the regulations that are supposed to save consumers money can end up costing them. For example, the Department of Energy sets efficiency standards for both central air systems and window units, which in theory will reduce electric bills.

But over the last 30 years, the agency has set multiple rounds of successively tighter standards with diminishing marginal returns, and the last several raised the up-front cost of equipment more than many owners will ever earn back in the form of energy savings.

The worst of them, finalized during the Clinton administration and taking effect in 2006, not only resulted in a sharply higher price tag for central air conditioners—likely much higher than the Energy Department-predicted $335—but also resulted in much larger components, and thus higher installation costs as more homeowners had to have walls knocked out to accommodate them.

……………..

The Trump Energy Department chose not to reverse these Obama-era air conditioner efficiency standards*—which is a difficult task—but it is raising the bar on any further ones. The Energy Department is proposing that new standards can be set only if they deliver significant consumer benefits—a refreshing return to common sense.

But the legions of bureaucrats and lobbyists and activists who make their living off an endless stream of efficiency regulations are waiting for the next sympathetic president to roll out more pain for homeowners.

Beyond efficiency, Washington has also found fault with the refrigerants used in these air conditioners.

Starting in the late 1980s, the most effective refrigerants were scheduled for gradual phase-out on the grounds that they deplete the Earth’s ozone layer. The best refrigerant for cooling homes, HCFC-22, was banned by the Environmental Protection Agency for new equipment starting in 2010. [read more]

*It’s too bad he can’t. Oh, well. I guess removing a regulation is harder than creating one—like putting toothpaste back into the tube. Insanity has a momentum all its own.