Credit: Paul Robalino/YH

He may not write fashion fiction, but he did one-up J.K. Rowling, at least in relevance, as her successor for Harvard’s commencement speaker. Director of an overhauled Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Secretary Steven Chu has proven instrumental to Obama’s therapy of the Bush-era environmentalist personality in Washington. For eight months, his voice has backed the nuclear weapons program and reactor production, management of radioactive waste, domestic energy production and related research, and conservation efforts—historically monumental concerns of our contemporary governing platform. However, last week Chu demonstrated the potential to shift America’s dominant energy discourse away from these oft-misleading, big-ticket issues and towards an urgent, more workable energy agenda. Chu’s presence in Washington gives hope that Americans may come to understand global energy issues—if not substantively, then on a scale appropriate to their involvement in a solution.

Though these remain the overarching concerns of the DOE, Chu announced on Tues., Sept. 1, that the government would now regulate the energy consumption of vending machines. Vending machines. This might seem a strange focal point of an administration facing high public expectations for proactive, effective energy legislation. Furthermore, the announcement heralds another regulatory burden. This one may seem minimal, but it has emerged in a political climate embroiled by disputes over colossal issues—the government’s role in health-care reform, alleviation of foreign oil dependence, and management of the recession.

New government regulations usually cause conservatives to scamper and cry overload. Now, a growing number of liberals are also questioning the grip of the government on prescriptions to the complex social and economic issues facing us. But as Chu moves to regulate the US’s two million potato chip-chucking appliances, outcry remains to be seen.

This past February, President Obama submitted a memorandum to the Department of Energy emphasizing the importance of speeding up energy conservation standards. Again, while “standards” here denote “progress” to many Americans, for others­—namely business interests and ardent libertarians—energy caps and baselines imply imprisonment. Overall, neither approach is unwarranted. Arguments over personal liberty underlie what is hopefully general improvement for the general American interest. But how general can we get when discussing energy conservation? Can’t we reach consensus when Mr. Chu acts on something equal parts un-general and uncontroversial as energy conservation standards for vending machines?

When Mr. Chu accepted his somewhat thankless position from President Obama in January, supporters of the new administration brimmed with the promise of a progressive leader backed by a cabinet of open-minded, bi-partisan expertise. The discourse of energy issues was invariably dominated by broad consideration of energy security, nuclear prospects and management, and renewables—certainly not micro-changes that impact vending machines. Chu, however, would have been an obvious choice for Energy Secretary regardless of the scope of public concern. A Nobel Prize-winning physicist and director of the prominent Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Chu understands that the trends to which American environmentalism is susceptible should never inform sound science. Indeed, he has fought for America’s independence from fossil fuels long before it was fashionable.

If anything environmental is fashionable in today’s public eye, it is the discussion of carbon emissions, and regulating the energy consumption of vending machines can reduce these by up to 9.6 million metric tons from 2012 through 2042. To the economist, this translates to between 38 and 52 million dollars per year in savings for commercial customers. Still, it would seem that for a man of his experience and perspective, a discussion of vending machine efficiency standards might hold up to that intolerable, mid-semester lecture of “Ethics and the Emotions” on the excitement scale. Even if reminders of their interconnectedness with energy issues are to convince Americans of conservation efforts, an even more unlikely image is this horn-rimmed, academic-turned-politician popping quarters into an electronic feedbox, fiending for Cheetos. I bet the guy hasn’t given a thought to a vending machine since an unlikely first pack of Marlboros in high school.

The reality is that our DOE has good reason to focus the energies of some of our brightest scientific minds on issues as seemingly inconsequential as the country’s vending machines. Sure, Obama’s earnest memorandum to the DOE stemmed from neither his personal agenda, nor his expertise, nor his creativity. Chu’s action, however, evidences a discussion in Washington that, for the first time, seeks to alleviate the colossal impact of annual U.S. carbon dioxide emissions that are traceable to sources other than the big-name pollution sources targeted on the campaign trail and in rhetoric.

It is not a stretch to suggest that the efficiency standards on such a miniscule scale as appliances intimately relate to national energy security and a politicized environmental movement. Furthermore, standards such as these evidence that outright government regulation is hardly disputable when the scope of action is appropriate and the goals are upfront. Maybe ceiling fans will be next, and after that, water heaters: whatever it takes to remedy America’s painful ignorance of the magnitude of efficiency concerns.

by Chris Termyn, JE’10

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