As a CA resident, I will be the first to admit that sometimes our state is completely nuts. The thing is, none of these manufacturers or businesses will make improvements without stupid legislation. I highly doubt the CEA is actually objecting to old data but are probably complaining about being regulated at all.
Take for example wall warts. The new ones sip juice, we're talking about .1 watts as measured using my Kill A Watt. However, I've seen old ones sucking serious wattage while doing nothing. The same thing goes on a much larger scale for appliances. The new appliances are much more efficient which helps my power bill and reduces CA's need for power plants.
You would think this would happen naturally as tech improves but I have seen no evidence that corporations do it proactively. It takes a law to prod them to improve all the little things that in the end benefit all of our pockets.
All I'm getting at is that before y'all who live in other states start dropping the predictable arguments that Californians are crazy, over litigious and anti-business, please keep in mind that a lot of industry improvements are driven by our new laws. We hate them too and really wish industries were more proactive but they aren't.
I'm sure I'm being over-sensitive but I'm getting tired of public pundits talking about how anti-business CA is. You know, this internet you are using, invented in CA. The computers, tablets or phones you are using to read this post, owe a huge debt to CA again (Intel, HP, Apple, Cisco).
We may be nutcases but we are productive nutcases