The New York Times is annoyed (what else is new?) at the Bush Administration.
An administration staffed with aggressive corporate executives might normally be expected to embrace cutting-edge solutions to the country's energy problems — especially when those solutions are accessible and affordable.So what's a "cutting-edge solution," from the viewpoint of the editors of the New York Times? Why, federal regulation. What could be more cutting-edge than that? Aside maybe from a papal edict, I mean.
The Times is upset because the Bush Administration committed the unforgivable sin of proposing a mandatory 20% increase in fuel efficiency for central air conditioners. Why is that cause for alarm? Because one of Bill Clinton's eleventh hour decisions was to require a 30% increase. And thus, somehow, to the New York Times, a requirement that manufacturers increase efficiency by 20% reflects an "ideological suspicion of anything resembling top-down government." And ideology is always bad. Unless it's a liberal ideology.
And one of the main tenets of liberal ideology, incidentally, is that no cost is ever too high, as long as someone else is paying:
Most manufacturers have the ability to produce the more efficient units. But except for the second-largest maker, Goodman Manufacturing, none of the big companies wanted to proceed with the Clinton rule. They argued, and the Bush administration agreed, that the Clinton standard would make air-conditioners too expensive for low-income families and discourage others from replacing older systems. In actual fact, the up-front cost difference between the 20 and 30 percent standards is about $100 per unit — an amount that could be recovered through electricity savings in three to five years.Well, no big deal then. I wonder if the editors of the New York Times are willing to front me $100 now. I promise to pay them back in three to five years.