Opinion ID: 456159
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: DOE's Discussion of the Nation's Need to Save Energy and Energy Savings

Text: 250 Petitioners argue that DOE failed outright to discuss or evaluate the nation's need to save energy, see State Pet. Br. at 49, which is one of the statutory factors relevant to economic justification. See EPCA Sec. 325(d)(6). That blunt challenge can be readily discarded. Although DOE did not explicitly refer to this factor in the Weighing of Factors section that preceded determinations on economic justification for standards governing each product type, DOE did discuss the factor in a separate section preceding the Weighing of Factors statements. See, e.g., 48 Fed.Reg. 39,376, 39,392, 39,393-94, 39,395 (1983). Moreover, those statements all contained explicit references to the amount of energy standards would save, see, e.g., id. at 39,392, 39,394, 39,395, and those references can fairly be understood to incorporate the earlier discussions concerning the need to save the quantity and kind of energy that standards might conserve. We are quite sure that DOE did not ignore this statutory factor completely. 251 Whether DOE's treatment of this statutory factor and the closely related factor of energy savings can stand in light of DOE's misunderstanding of significant savings is a far more difficult question. As we discussed in Part II, DOE seriously overestimated the energy savings it could reasonably demand from standards, and consequently rejected standards that saved amounts of energy Congress regarded as significant. In its April 1982 notice, DOE offered the following passage as its entire discussion of how to evaluate energy savings in considering economic justification: 252 While the significant conservation of energy is a separate statutory requirement for imposing an energy efficiency standard, the total projected savings directly resulting from standards is also one factor to be considered in weighing the burdens and benefits under section 325(d). The ORNL results, discussed above, were utilized for this factor. In each product-specific analysis the savings are specified. 253 47 Fed.Reg. 14,424, 14,433 (1982). The product-specific discussions of energy savings, in turn, for each product type merely specified the highest number of Quads saved under DOE's various analyses of possible standards. DOE discussed the amount of energy saved only for central air conditioners--the product for which standards would have saved the largest amount of energy--where DOE termed a saving of .063 to .103 Quads annually as not very great. 48 Fed.Reg. 39,376, 39,405 (1983). As we noted in Part II, the total annual source consumption of an appliance eligible for optional standards is about .0483 Quads. That figure, which Congress evidently thought was a noticeable amount of energy, is less than the lower boundary and less than one-half of the upper boundary for the range of savings from CAC standards that DOE thought not very great. DOE did not comment on the amount of energy standards would save for any other product type. Thus, we do not know how DOE's appraisal of the energy savings under standards for other products figured in its evaluation of the overall benefits from those standards. But as no standard saved more than the standard for central air conditioners, and as DOE considered the total benefits of standards for each other product type considered in the August 1983 notice to be either relatively small or minimal, 49 we must assume that DOE was quite unimpressed with the energy savings from any of them. 254 DOE, in short, elaborated only once on its view of energy savings as a statutory factor bearing on economic justification. That passage, quoted above, refers directly to DOE's standards for significant savings, which we have found to be unlawful. The question, then, is whether the unlawful significance standards tainted DOE's view of economic justification. We think it did. The explanation DOE provided for its assessment of energy savings referred only to DOE's standards for significance. 50 In addition, DOE's disparagement of the savings predicted for central air conditioners, which was its only articulated evaluation of this factor in the product-specific discussions, is entirely in line with the unreasonably inflated demands the agency made of standards in evaluating significance. We think that DOE was right to link its interpretation of significance to its evaluation of energy savings, since related provisions of a statute should be understood as a unified scheme. In this case, however, the consequence of that principle is that DOE's incorrect view of significance infected its view of an important statutory criterion for economic justification. 255 Because DOE decided not to adopt any system for quantifying the factors to be weighed in determining economic justification, we have no way of knowing whether that error in turn affected the overall findings on the benefits of standards. But as the entire point of EPCA was to save energy, we can scarcely assume that DOE's opinion of how much energy was worth saving did not influence the final rules. Had DOE correctly understood the range of savings Congress regarded as significant, DOE would presumably have paused for reflection before weighing significant savings so lightly in assessing economic justification. As it is, however, we are in the awkard position of reviewing an agency which took a radically faulty view of congressional intent. We must decide whether, had DOE begun in a wholly different place, it would necessarily have ended where it did. The fact is that we do not know, and that for us to speculate on the question would impermissibly intrude on the agency's prerogative to make policy judgments for itself. In sum, we find that DOE explicitly carried over its unlawful standards for significance into its evaluation of one of the statutory criteria for economic justification, and that this mistake was at least potentially dispositive of whether standards should be imposed. 51 DOE must consequently reconsider its view of energy savings, and thus its conclusions on economic justification, in light of a new definition of significance authorized by EPCA. 256