The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week issued the Final Draft Version 8.0 of its Energy Star TV specifications, which are to take effect April 16, 2018.

In the process of completing the draft, the EPA offered industry stake holders an opportunity to comment on any concerns in criteria outlined in the second draft of the specifications that were being updated and revised.

The EPA said many of the submitted comments concerned proposals to require Automatic Brightness Controls (ABCs) on all or most of the pre-established picture modes in a television as well as requests that software updates delivered after the initial setup of a television not be allowed to boost power consumption levels above that which was tested and certified for Energy Star approvals.

The EPA said it considered the competing comments and “has retained the Draft 2 requirement that TVs certifying with ABC enabled maintain it in all but one setting if they have up to four settings and in all but two settings if they have more than four settings.”

This guys are nuts for quite long time.