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The Obama administration hit two home runs with new energy saving standards announced by President Obama along with other clean energy actions in California today.

The struggle toward improved gas furnace efficiency standards may have an end in sight. Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit approved a settlement between the Department of Energy (DOE) and an industry trade group. In the settlement, DOE agreed to pull back efficiency standards completed in 2011 and develop new standards in their place within two years. This new rulemaking represents another opportunity to set strong furnace standards which will save energy and cut consumers’ heating bills.

New energy-saving standards for certain types of incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs proposed by the Department of Energy (DOE) last Friday mark another important step in improving lighting efficiency in the United States. DOE’s proposal further advances strong standards completed in 2009. Together, the 2009 standards and the proposed increases announced last week dramatically improve reflector lamp and fluorescent tube lamp efficiency by 70% and 23% respectively.

Late on Friday, the Department of Energy (DOE) proposed new efficiency standards for commercial icemakers, which make the ice provided by drink dispensers in fast food restaurants among many other uses. While the proposed standards would be a significant step toward improving icemaker efficiency, higher cost-effective efficiency levels could be achieved using commercially available technologies.

The Department of Energy (DOE) issued a final rule for strong new efficiency standards today that will take a big bite out of the energy consumption of the refrigerators and freezers used in supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurants, and commercial kitchens.

In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama said we need to “act with more urgency” on climate change and also pledged to make this “a year of action.” Fortunately, when it comes to new appliance, equipment, and lighting efficiency standards, the administration has already made very good progress.

Thanks to a new national standard announced today by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), power adapters--the sometimes bulky and annoying boxes on the power cords of your electronic gadgets--will waste a lot less energy. Just as importantly, DOE deferred new national standards for battery chargers, allowing strong existing standards in California and Oregon to remain in place.

External Power Supplies

New national standards for metal halide light fixtures announced by the Department of Energy (DOE) today take another important step toward curbing energy waste and will save businesses and towns money on their utility bills. The new standards also mark progress toward meeting President Obama’s ambitious goal of saving 3 billion metric tons of CO2 from new appliance standards, as laid out in the Climate Action Plan.  But stronger standards could have saved even more.

What a difference a year makes! At the start of 2013, we were tracking the amount of savings lost from standards which were delayed at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). At the start of 2014, we are tracking progress toward President Obama’s ambitious goal of 3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide reductions from standards by 2030. Here are eight quotes that capture the start, finish, and the in-between of 2013: