BILLS TARGET SET-TOP BOXES IN STATES AS FEDERAL MEASURE FLOUNDERS

With the Energy Bill stalling in Congress, states continued to press with legislative initiatives this year to slap energy standards on cable and satellite set-top boxes and digital converter boxes. The cable and CE industries had successfully warded off legislation last year that would have mandated the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) voluntary Energy Star standards for set-top boxes and 8 other products, but bills continued to crop up in state legislatures this year.

Among states where the bills are still active are Conn., Fla., Mass., N.J., N.Y., Pa., R.I., Tenn. and Vt., said Jason Linnell, EIA’s mgr. for environmental affairs. Bills, based on a model developed by the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP), have died this year in Colo., Hawaii, Ill. and N.H. Me. decided not to go ahead with standards, settling for a study.

The industry wasn’t “very much concerned” this year about the possibility of an actual set-top box standard being implemented in any of the states that have introduced bills, Linnell said. In all those states where standards were being contemplated for set-top boxes, “we expect that if the bills did move, set-top boxes would be taken out,” he said. Although the Conn. measure was shorn of set-top boxes, it was the most promising, said Isaac Elnecave, NEEP’s energy efficiency project mgr. Despite removal of set-top boxes in Conn., the bill gave broad, sweeping authority to state regulatory agencies to regulate any products and set standards any time in the future, said Linnell: “So we are trying to get that taken out of the bill.” Bills have made progress in Mass., where it was reported out of the Joint Committee on Energy and in Pa.,.N.J. and R.I., where hearings have been held, Elnecave said.

The industry’s main argument to lawmakers was that slapping an energy standard on set-top boxes when they were “rapidly evolving” would hinder the development of new features in those boxes, Linnell said, because manufacturers would have to “constantly worry about whether they would use more energy or not.” It was also being pointed out that prescribing an energy standard for digital converter boxes would affect the digital conversion, he said. All the bills reference the EPA’s Energy Star standards, he said: “We are very concerned about setting a precedent of making the voluntary standard mandatory.” Energy Star standards are set to challenge the industry to do more, not to mandate that everyone meets them, Linnell said, and “you have to sort of work to achieve that goal.”

The industry’s argument that setting an energy standard would hamper incorporation of new features in the boxes was flawed, Elnecave said. That was because the bills exclude multi-function devices from its purview, he said. For example, he said, cable boxes with Internet capability wouldn’t be covered by the bill. The standards would be applicable only to mono-function boxes that deal just with TV signals. “So we don’t believe that that’s an accurate argument.” The bill does target DTV converter boxes, he said, but he pointed out that there already were converter boxes in the market that meet the efficiency standard. “So there’s no reason why other companies can’t make more such boxes.”

Linnell said the bills differ on which level of Energy Star they have. The measure in N.J. is the only one that still has Energy Star Tier II, he said. That standard never came into effect because it was suspended indefinitely and the EPA isn’t “going back to it anytime in the future.” The CE industry was working with the EPA to revise the standard and come up with new energy limits, he said. Tier II standards limit energy use to 2-7 watts, while Tier I allows 15-20 watts, he said.

Some bills do exempt multi-function boxes, Linell conceded. “But we still don’t want to have that mandatory restriction, even if it’s Tier I.” Only 18 models of set-top boxes currently meet Tier I standards, he said: “So you are really limiting the number of set-top boxes people could use.” And for digital cable, there was only a handful of boxes from one company that meets the standard, Linnell said. Setting a mandatory standard would result in “giving a monopoly to one company. So it’s really a big restriction on the available products and puts a lot of competitive pressures on the industry.”

Part of the reason why bills keep cropping up in the states is that the Energy Bill isn’t moving in Congress, Linnell said. If the bill were to pass, the majority of products in the bill would then have either a federal standard in place or federal rulemaking to set a standard that would preempt state action, he said. However, Linnell admitted that the Energy Bill was on “life support” in Congress. Elnecave said only the inclusion of a specific standard in federal legislation would keep states from acting.

NEEP would continue to press the issue in the states, Elnecave said: “We will continue to move forward because we believe that energy savings from this are very important, very achievable and are very cost effective.” Asked if his organization would consider amendments to legislation to make it more palatable to industry, he said he couldn’t discuss it, but he said energy advocates were “very open to discussing possible compromises with the industry and legislators as we had done with other standards.”