Each year’s delay in setting three new Department of Energy appliance efficiency standards costs consumers and businesses billions of dollars in higher energy bills, according to a new study by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project [ http://www.standardsasap.org/] Implementing new efficiency standards for residential furnaces and boilers, commercial air conditioners, and distribution transformers could decrease our annual energy use significantly – enough electricity to power about 330,000 typical U.S homes and natural gas to heat about 170,0

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Since a 1999 ban on two-stroke, carburetor engines went into full effect in 2001, levels of burned and unburned gasoline products in Lake Tahoe have declined by 80-90 percent according to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). The 1999 ban was instituted by the Governing Board of the TRPA, a bistate organization established to protect the lake. The board voted in favor of the engine ban after it reviewed data that estimated each day of the boating season resulted in carbureted two-stroke engines releasing 770 gallons of fuel into the lake.

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