Even better, there's a general exception for well-designed computers that have efficient idle/wake cycles (which includes any computer being used in industry, gaming PCs just tend not to be terribly well-designed), and it's not new.

So no, nobody "just" did anything and nobody is prevented from doing anything other than importing poorly-made Alienware computers into five or six states that are interested in mandating a level of responsibility on the part of computer companies. The entire issue here is that Dell just hasn't bothered making this computer in particular have power usage while idle fall under a well-understood guideline that exists in 10% of US states. It's entirely clickbait.