California Wants to Ban Your TV

Black market here we come:

In their continuing quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, state regulators have uncovered a new villain in the war on global warming : your big screen TV.

Couch potatoes, beware.

The California Energy Commission is considering a proposal that would ban California retailers from selling all but the most energy-efficient televisions. Critics say the news standards could take 25 percent of televisions off the market — most of them 40 inches or larger.

“The larger the television, the more at risk it is of being banned unnecessarily in California,” said Douglas Johnson, senior director of technology police for the Consumer Electronics Association.

Association officials say the standards are not only unnecessary – because the federal government already regulates energy efficiency through the voluntary Energy Star program — but also ill-timed. The last thing our economy needs now is products taken off the market, they say.

If I were in the TV business I'd go to Primm, NV, right over the border from California, and open a TV store in that outlet mall they have there. All you'd have to do is sell those big TVs that California banned and your economy would be stimulated all the way to the bank.