http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/earth/26star.html





Audit Finds Vulnerability of EnergyStar Program



BY MATTHEW L. WALD



Like more than a dozen other bogus products submitted for approval
since last June by Congressional auditors posing as companies, it
easily secured the label, according to a Congressional report
to be issued Friday. So did an “air purifier” that was essentially an
electric space heater with a feather duster pasted on top, the Government Accountability Office said.



In a nine-month study, four fictitious companies invented by the
accountability office also sought EnergyStar status for some
conventional devices like dehumidifiers and heat pump models that
existed only on paper. The fake companies submitted data indicating
that the models consumed 20 percent less energy than even the most
efficient ones on the market. Yet those applications were mostly
approved without a challenge or even questions, the report said.



Auditors concluded that the EnergyStar program was highly vulnerable to fraud.



Maria Vargas, an official with the Environmental Protection Agency, which runs the program with the Energy Department,
said the approvals did not pose a problem for consumers because the
products never existed. There was “no fraud,” Ms. Vargas emphasized.
She said she doubted that many of the 40,000 genuine products with
EnergyStar status had been mislabeled.



But in anticipation of the report’s release, the Energy Department has issued two statements in recent days pledging to strengthen the program.



Yet auditors found problems beyond the approval of nonexistent
products. They determined that once a company registered as an
EnergyStar partner, it could download the logo from the government’s
Web site and paste it on products for which it had not even requested
approval.



The report is only the latest in a series involving the 18-year-old
EnergyStar program, which was set up to guide the public on
energy-efficient choices that could both save people money and help
reduce the nation’s runaway energy consumption.



Watchdogs within the Environment Protection Agency and the Department
of Energy have reported in the past that Energy Star has taken some
claims of energy efficiency on faith. Yet the new study suggests that
it often does so on remote control.



Congressional auditors said they were told by EnergyStar officials that
some of the approvals, including the one for the gasoline alarm clock,
had been issued by an automated system and that the details had
probably never been reviewed by a human being.



Ms. Vargas added that the automated system that green-lighted the clock
was only a preliminary “screen” to evaluate energy figures submitted by
manufacturers and to cut out products that did not qualify. Every
product that is certified is reviewed by a human being, she said.



But Senator Susan Collins,  Republican of Maine, who requested the accountability office study, said in an interview, “I don’t think I’d admit that.”



If a government employee or contractor examined the comical picture
submitted of the space heater with a feather duster, or read the
description of the gas-powered clock — with dimensions suggesting it
was the size of an electric generator — “and red flags didn’t get
raised, that’s a really troubling commentary,” Ms. Collins said.



She said the ease with which the auditors had fooled the program
suggested that consumers and agencies that rely on the logo were paying
extra for products that might not actually save energy. “This program
is extraordinarily easy to defraud,” she said.



Ms. Collins also noted that the economic stimulus bill included
hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks for people who buy
EnergyStar products and that many government agencies were required to
choose EnergyStar products if they were available.



In effect, people “are ripped off twice,” as consumers and as taxpayers, she said.



Previous reports have suggested that the EnergyStar label is not always
a complete or useful guide to the best consumer choices. Last October,
for example, the inspector general of the E.P.A. said
that 100 percent of the computer monitors that carried the EnergyStar
logo had indeed met requirements. But so did 80 percent of the monitors
that did not have the logo; the manufacturers had apparently not sought
approval. For computer printers, 95 percent of the ones with the logo
qualified, but so did 60 percent of the ones that did not have the
logo.



And some consumer products lacking EnergyStar approval consumed less energy than those that had it, the audit found.



And the inspector general of the Energy Department reported
the same month that EnergyStar claims were not “accurate or verifiable”
for many products. The program requires manufacturers of windows and
fluorescent lights to get their products certified by independent
laboratories. But companies that make refrigerators, washing machines,
dishwashers, water heaters and room air-conditioners, in which
efficiency is far more critical because they gobble more energy, need
only check a box on a form to be certified.



The Energy Department has promised to set up a system of independent
verification for all products. Last week, it said it would begin
testing refrigerators, freezers, clothes washers, dishwashers, water
heaters and room air-conditioners. In October 2008, Consumer Reports
magazine reported
it had tested refrigerators built by LG of South Korea and found that
they were not nearly as efficient as the maker claimed. LG eventually
agreed to modify the machines already sold to reduce electricity
consumption and to reimburse customers. Last week, the Energy
Department said it had found a Samsung refrigerator that did not comply.



The Energy Department does spot check some items with the EnergyStar
logo, but mostly the ones that do not use much power in the first
place. The department recently announced that several models of compact fluorescent lamps
would have to remove the EnergyStar logo because they were not durable
enough. It has conducted spot checks on regulated appliances that do
not carry the logo and determined that some cannot be legally sold
because they do not meet minimum efficiency standards.



The audit to be released Friday did not set out to test any products
but focused solely on testing the certification process by submitting
bogus products.



Gene Rodrigues,
the director of customer energy efficiency at Southern California
Edison, suggested that the EnergyStar label suffered from its appeal to
manufacturers. “It may be that their ability to properly manage the
brand suffered at the fringes,” he said of the program’s overseers.



He argues that a strong federal certification program is vital. “What
we in the program industry are looking for is for this to be a wake-up
call to whip them into shape,” he said.



In another sign that Energy Star is not dotting its i’s, program
officials told the auditors that they sought to assure honesty by
warning corporate applicants on some of its paperwork that
intentionally submitting false information is a crime, under Title 18
of the United States Code.



But it is a crime under Title 19, not 18, and the warning does not appear on all of the relevant forms, the report said.

Quoted:


The most pressing thing I drew from the article is that I now have a burning need for a gasoline powered alarm clock.

Maria Vargas, an official with the Environmental Protection Agency, which runs the program with the Energy Department, said the approvals did not pose a problem for consumers because the products never existed. There was “no fraud,” Ms. Vargas emphasized. She said she doubted that many of the 40,000 genuine products with EnergyStar status had been mislabeled.

Quoted:
The most pressing thing I drew from the article is that I now have a burning need for a gasoline powered alarm clock.

Quoted:







Actually, I'm kind of digging it also.  


 

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Is everyone in our government retarded?

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Is everyone in our government retarded?