Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013

Floor Speech

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I thank my senior colleague from Oregon. I appreciate very much his calling up this amendment and for his leadership on energy, and specifically energy efficiency.

I would also like to compliment my colleagues from Ohio and New Hampshire, who have worked so hard on this very valuable piece of the energy puzzle: How do we more efficiently utilize energy that we generate?

Specifically, this amendment is related to standby power, the power that is wasted keeping devices ready to use at a moment's notice. I prefer the term ``vampire'' power or ``vampire'' electronics. This is the power our electronics suck out of our power system when they are doing absolutely nothing. So this challenge of loss to vampire electronics is certainly something we ought to take on.

Many electronic devices, from televisions to desktop computers, cell phone chargers, microwaves, use energy when they are turned off but are still plugged in. Often, you will see that little light that tells you it is still plugged in. This wasted energy accounts for roughly 5 percent of residential electricity use. So about 1 kilowatt in every 20 or $1 in every $20 is utilized to keep those little lights blinking.

The United States has yet to establish standards for efficiency in products related to standby power. Some States have done so, and other industrialized nations have taken action. This amendment would simply tell the Department to look at the standards established elsewhere in the world, or in individual States, compare them and analyze them, so we can consider whether a lot more could be done in the United States to make us more efficient. That efficiency is like producing free, available power by ending the waste. In fact, the EPA estimates 100 billion kilowatt hours of electricity are wasted by vampire electronics each year. That adds up to $10 billion in extra energy costs.

Depending on the age of components, running a cable box or large-screen TV, a DVD player, a gaming console, surround sound setup, could be like running a significant refrigerator, a significant power draw, and DOE believes it is feasible to reduce this waste from standby power by about 75 percent.

The value of that 75-percent reduction would be equivalent to erecting 25,000 3-megawatt wind turbines for free. That is a lot of wind power being utilized. So let's do it.

Under this amendment, the Department of Energy is instructed to conduct a study of standards of standby power appliances and electronic devices that have been implemented by other States or other industrialized nations, and to evaluate which of the standards studied would be feasible and appropriate in the United States. It is a simple idea and an important study that can contribute substantially to the use of power effectively here in our economy.

I thank my colleagues for bringing this amendment forward.

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