Why Legislating Behavior Never Works

Earlier this year, the New York Times posted a story about the goal for California to remotely control thermostats in homes.

In concept, I can understand the reason why the energy commission would back a proposal like this.

Reducing individual customers’ electrical use — if necessary, involuntarily — could avoid that, Dr. Rosenfeld (California Energy Commission member) said. “If you can control rotating outages by letting everyone in the state share the pain,” he said, “there’s a lot less pain to go around.”

Forget about the security implications for a moment and look at the practicality of this. Take a look at what really is going to happen in the construction world should this law pass.

The way this type of law will be enforced is upon inspection from the building inspector. He is going to be required to check the thermostat to see if it is compliant. If not, he’ll not be able to pass inspection and the occupant will have to have the change made before moving in.

So, because people won’t want the government to control their thermostats, the first thing a home owner will do (like me) is to get a new thermostat and replace it. After a while of people buying two thermostats and throwing the offending one away, the government will get wise and then outlaw the sale of non-controllable thermostats.

It won’t take long for there to be a black market of thermostats.

Sound crazy… not as crazy as you might think.