A group of senators from the Democratic Party has called on the US Department of Commerce to follow Europe’s law requiring all manufacturers in the region adhere to the USB-C charging port standard on their mobile devices.
Senators Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders signed a letter—addressed and sent to US secretary of commerce Gina Raimondo—that demanded the department to develop a strategy for a common charger law, requiring a common charging port across mobile devices in the US.
The letter reads, “We urge you to follow the EU’s lead by developing a comprehensive strategy to address unnecessary consumer costs, mitigate e-waste, and restore sanity and certainty to the process of purchasing new electronics.”
The senators argued that proprietary charging ports like Apple’s Lightning create unnecessary e-waste and called it an example of ‘planned obsolescence’ that is “expensive and frustrating for consumers, and drives the proliferation of electronic waste.”
Although, unlike the EU law, the request was to create “a comprehensive strategy” implying that the department may develop its own charging port standard rather than codifying USB-C.
Looking at Apple’s perspective, according to 9to5Mac, the company has seen pushing back against the EU’s mandatory USB-C standard, claiming that the requirement would actually lead to more e-waste proliferation and would stifle innovation. The Verge backed the latter claim with critics arguing that it would inhibit smartphone manufacturers from developing faster charging standards in the future.
Regardless, the Bloomberg report already indicates that Apple is already in the works to streamline USB-C starting with the iPhone 15 in 2023. Nevertheless, the EU law also raises another subject to explore: a portless iPhone.
