11 States Sue Trump's DOE Over Stalled Energy-Efficiency Standards

"SAN FRANCISCO — New York, California and nine other states sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its failure to finalize energy-use limits for portable air conditioners and other products.

The new standards would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save businesses and consumers billions of dollars, and conserve enough energy to power more than 19 million households for a year, but the U.S. Department of Energy has not met a requirement to publish them by now, according to attorneys general who filed the lawsuit against the DOE in federal court in San Francisco.

That means the standards are not legally enforceable.

'The Department of Energy is blocking common-sense energy efficiency standards. This is absurd,' California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement announcing the suit. 'The Trump Administration should stop stalling and start following the law.'

The other states in the lawsuit are: Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Vermont, Washington, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Maryland. The City of New York is also a plaintiff."

Sudhin Thanawala reports for the Associated Press June 13, 2017.