Fahrenheit Eighty (Gasp!)

Carter's energy-saving proposal stirs a lot of hot air

The most identifiable group affected by the measure will be employees working in buildings subject to the plan's interpretations. These employees are likely to experience minor discomfort and small losses in productivity.

It was a pronouncement worthy of Orwell's Ministry of Truth. Already, there was talk of CLO factors (clothing insulation value) and acclimatization periods. In this case, though, the agency involved was the Department of Energy and the proposed effective date 1979, not 1984. Part of President Carter's stand-by energy-conservation measure approved by Congress last May, the plan in question would require that thermostats in nonresidential buildings be set no lower than 80DEG F in the summer and no higher than 65DEG F in the winter, and that hot water settings be turned down to 105DEG F. Should Carter decide to implement the measure this week as planned, workers in some 5 million such buildings would suddenly find themselves deprived of the air-conditioned comfort to which they have become accustomed.

According to DOE estimates, 364,000 bbl. of oil a day--about 2% of the national consumption--would be saved by thus regulating room temperature and hot water levels. Understandably, certain buildings would be exempt from the ukase: hospitals, schools, museums, zoos, laboratories and places used for the storage of food and other perishables.

This plan bears a wilting resemblance to the Petroleum Consumption Curtailment Countermeasures adopted last March in Japan, which urged workers to set their thermostats at 28DEG C (82.4DEG F). Although the fashion has yet to catch on with the public, Energy Czar Masumi Esaki has been trying to promote what he calls the Sho-ene (save energy) Look--a short-sleeved suit, sans tie, which he wore to greet Carter last week in Tokyo.

Carter, along with every other federal employee in Washington, is already used to taking the heat: since April, thermostats in Government buildings have been set at 80DEG F. Hamilton Jordan found relief by throwing open his White House windows, but millions of office workers who would be affected by the new edict have no such option: most new commercial buildings are steel, aluminum and glass cocoons, hermetically sealed against the weather--and cooling breaths of air.

The hot, stuffy environment in such buildings falls well outside the comfort zone as determined by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers: temperatures of 72DEG F to 78DEG F, humidity of 20% to 60%. The engineers' studies also show that under unfavorable conditions, worker productivity falls, on-the-job accidents increase, and employee errors rise. Not to mention frustration levels. "What we're up against," declares Fred Crawford, director of the Center for Research in Social Change at Atlanta's Emory University, "is having our personal freedoms and choices so circumscribed that ordinary citizens are being turned into lawbreakers." Crawford also believes that national habits will change if Carter's plan is enacted: people will spend more time at home where they can turn on the air conditioner.

The prospect of overheated patrons hardly heartens restaurant, movie-house and theater managers. "My customers have been coming to the restaurant to get out of the hot kitchen," says Harry Klingeman, owner of The Indian Trail restaurant in Winnetka, Ill. "They are purchasing comfort." Karl Goedereis, manager of the expensive Houston restaurant Charley's 517, has a different kind of worry. "We'll have to let people in with T shirts," he sighs. "The class of the restaurant will go down."

Personal inconveniences aside, Carter's edict has also raised complaints from engineers. Merely setting the thermostat at 80DEG F, they argue, may actually waste energy. Many air-conditioning systems have not been designed to work efficiently and humidify properly at such levels. Matters are further complicated by "the solar load": as the sun moves around the building, room temperatures inside can rise by as much as 5DEG F. "You can't just set office thermostats like you do those in a home," explains Larry Wethers, a building-systems assistant for Chicago's 110-story Sears Tower, which has some 4,000 temperature controls. "Setting all of these would be like adjusting all the thermostats in the town of Elmhurst, Ill." George Hindy, manager of Boston's 52-story Prudential Tower and its companion building, thinks he can comply with the regulations, but only if he assigns about a dozen men to the two-week task of readjusting his 4,000 thermostats. The cost: $40,000.

At public hearings on the plan held in five cities, many citizens criticized Carter's plan and proposed energy-saving alternatives, including investment credits for the installation of more efficient cooling and heating systems. "The President's 80DEG proposal is intolerable," declared Houston Mayor Jim McConn. "With Houston's high humidity, it would cause the teak in Jones [symphony] Hall to fall off the walls, the glue binding books in the library to crystallize, clothing in department stores to mildew and blood donors to faint." He claims that his alternative--setting thermostats at 76DEG F, starting air conditioning later, shutting it off earlier and turning down lights--would save 25% more energy than Carter's proposal. Presumably, many citizens will merely resort to a simpler solution: electric fans in summer and space heaters in winter--measures that will hardly aid in lowering fuel bills.

Meanwhile, the DOE has drawn up detailed regulations for its plan, which it estimates will cost approximately $8 million to implement. Building owners will be given 30 days to post certificates of compliance, and can be fined up to $10,000 for violations. Still, many state and local governments are reluctant to cooperate. As one DOE official readily admitted, "the success of the program will largely depend on voluntary compliance."

The Administration cannot even depend on support from the courts. Federal judges in Beaumont, Texas, New Orleans, Albuquerque and Fargo, N. Dak., have countermanded the edict already in force for federal buildings. In the words of the New Orleans judges, the measure is "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable."

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