It's Christmas in January! Hundreds of new bills filed...
It's the most....wonderful time.....of the year......
There are hundreds of new bills filed in the Senate and the House (browse away here, and start around SB 2122 and HB 4200 for bill filed in 2006). There almost 2000 new bills filed, and there have got to be at least 150 or so that are solid, progressive ideas that will make life better for people.
This is the one of the best parts of the legislative cycle. It's like the first week of high school. Everything is fresh. People are happy to see each other after a long winter break. There are some new faces (are new legislators and staff the equivalent of transfer students?). It's fun.
One of the good new bills is
Representative Kathy Ryg (D-Vernon Hills) has a bill backed by Illinois PIRG that implements state energy efficiency standards for appliances. The federal standards (remember those yellow cards on home furnaces) haven't been updated in 20 years or so, so if states want to ensure their citizens save money on energy costs, they've got to implement their own standards. If not, we'll be stuck with energy-guzzling appliances.
As I understand it, more efficient appliances cost more up front (either marginally or significantly, hard to tell) and save a ton of money over the life of the product (either 10 times the marginal cost of the product or, with $1.00/therm natural gas prices, maybe 100 times the cost). So to the extent there is a higher cost with state efficiency standards, that cost is one of the best investments a consumer can make based on saved energy costs.
It's in the state's interest to make Illinois residents richer. These appliance standard will do that, by ensuring that Illinois residents send less money to the for-profit energy companies (which means they are ultimately owned by non-Illinois people -- people that the Illinois General Assembly shouldn't really care about).
I'm sure corporate interests will fight HB 4455, since they don't generally like the government telling them what to do, even if it's better for consumers. It's not clear to me who exactly would fight the proposal, but that's one neat thing about the legislative debate -- it's relatively transparent. You can track the bill's status here (but not yet track the slips of proponents and opponents online -- hopefully the next General Assembly will upgrade the website to track witnesses for each bill). And you can send a letter to your legislators through Illinois PIRG's website here. (If you aren't a member of Illinois PIRG, they are the group that hires all the summer canvassers to knock on your door and ask for $45. They also consistently lobby for great bills in Illinois, and now the Chicago City Council as well, so I'd recommend that you join them, either in person or online. Strength through numbers....).
8 comments:
They're more like freshmen than transfers the new legislators are.
There's nothing more wrong with for profit utilities than for-profit retail stores, auto companies, or web sites.
I don't know, Dan. When I hear efficiency standards I think of those new toilets that don't use enough water when they flush. they were supposed to conserve water. instead, toilets are filled with sh*t and more water is used cleaning them. But I'll stay open to the idea.
Those are Gore toilets. After Al Gore, the Vice Priz. They were his idea.
Ah. The utilities. I somehow forgot about them. I guess they'd prefer inefficient appliances. But I'd imagine they'd have bigger fish to fry.
Dan,
People would buy more efficient appliances on their own if the state deregulated electricity and thus made the price for electricity a market price. When people realize in times of higher prices how much money they're blowing, they'll do the money-saving thing without any more stringent efficiency standards.
And even if the state want better efficiency, tougher standards isn't the way to do it. If there is a state interest in raising efficiency (which there very well may be since less carbon emissions and less money to foreign oil supplers is in our interest), the way to do it is to tax inefficient appliances on a scale based on how inefficient they are, so that people can internalize the externality costs of more carbon in the air.
The best way to tax inefficient appliances is to raise taxes on energy supplies. Tax the dirty energy supplies more.
Or just let deregulation take effect in 2007 and watch prices (and tax revenue) skyrocket anyway.
How about tax incentives to produce and buy energy efficient appliances, especially refrigerators?
I have it from a totally measured blogger who isn't at all a screaming reactionary, prone to hyperbole, that Blagjoevich is hell-bent on using embryos to clone an entire race of hermaphrodyte humanoid secular-humanist homosexual rabbit-mice men whose sole skills are performing late-term abortions, keeping God out of public schools and voting for Democrats. And he's doing it WITH YOUR TAX DOLLARS.
Can we talk about that - because that could be trouble, and I'd think someone would propose legislation...
"Gore toilets"? Give me a frigging break. Present a shred of proof that's NOT from a right-wing website or stop peddling this crap.
Typical Republican behavior: why tell the truth when a lie is available?
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