What does the Obama Administration think about international trade? I was pleased to hear two Administration officials over the past couple of days endorse the importance of expanding U.S. companies' access to foreign markets. But on the policy side, this belief is not yet being translated into action. The long-awaited speech from the President
The rhetoric was flying in Beijing on Saturday morning - over tires and trade. The Commerce Ministry certainly played to the media in citing President Obama's decision to impose hefty new tariffs on car and light truck tires from China as "grave act of trade protectionism", a violation of international trade rules and a breaking of an
You may have missed it -- and I think many were more focused on last Sunday's World Cup qualifier soccer match between the U.S. and Mexico -- but last week there was a summit meeting of President Obama with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts. Climate change and energy were major pieces of the discussions, but of course the business and trading
As Congress debates health care, its recent work on legislation to put in place new controls on energy usage and associated emission of "greenhouse gases" (GHG) has receded into the background somewhat, at least as the mainstream media is concerned. One of razor-edged issues at play in the climate change "cap-and-trade" debate is
In this morning's Federal Register you may not have noticed an item having to do with automobile safety. After eight years, the U.S. Department of Transportation has issued a denial of a petition by General Motors to require all cars in the U.S. under 5 tons to have daytime running lamps. DOT, through its own studies, has not been able to find an
Now that we have entered May, the thermometers are starting to trend upward. In some regions of the country the cooling season has already started while in more northerly climes the heating season is drawing to a close. At the same time, on Capitol Hill the debate is raging on what measures to take to decrease U.S. energy usage and increase U.S. energy
Last week the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it has signed up utilities that service over 70 percent of U.S. electricity consumers. For what, you ask? To support bringing to market and consumers the high-efficiency solid state lighting products that will be identified in the coming months through the government’s Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize
The ENERGY STAR agencies came together for an evening last week to celebrate the top performers among their many partner companies and organizations striving to advance energy efficient product performance and consumer satisfaction. Of course, NEMA member companies were well represented in the honor rolls. Manufacturing Partners of the Year included
Greetings from San Francisco on the final day of U.S. Department of Energy's research and development workshop for solid-state lighting (SSL) -- lighting that uses light-emitting diodes (LED) as the light source. Despite the title, the workshop's attendance cuts across the spectrum from researchers, designers, distributors, chip manufacturers
A non-NEMA colleague recently told me that she had installed "some of those funny new light bulbs." According to NEMA Business Information Services, the U.S. market penetration of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) reached 25 percent recently. However, that number indicates that a majority of consumers are still using less efficient incandescent