CEA Slams DOE TV Set Testing Mandate

The Consumer Electronics Association calls a new DOE test procedure for measuring TV set power consumption "wasteful and unnecessary."

The adoption of the new procedure was not immediately accessible on the DOE site, which is not being updated during the government shutdown, but CEA said the department has come out with a final rule, and it is not happy.

CEA had asked DOE to defer to the existing industry test procedure, saying that a government mandate would tie the industry's hands and threaten existing programs like Energy Star and EnergyGuide. DOE has argued that it used the CEA CEA-2037-A draft  industry standard as its starting point for its own recommended testing process and incorporated parts of that into the DOE standard.

"DOE's test procedure may be very similar to the industry standard, but not exactly the same, and because it is locked into law, it will not keep pace with technology changes relevant to TV energy use and disclosures of energy use to consumers," said CEA in response to the mandate.

DOE signaled its intent to establish the new testing process in January.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.