Trump's plan to eliminate Energy Star could raise utility bills for American families, experts say

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Bottom line: The Energy Star program was introduced by a Republican president in 1992. Now, a new Republican administration appears poised to shut it down for good. While the Trump administration speaks of organizational improvements, industry representatives are warning politicians about the dire consequences their actions could have on households budgets.

Internal sources at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report that the administration plans to kill the Energy Star program. After serving as a "gold standard" of sorts for power efficiency in the US and elsewhere in the world, the familiar blue Energy Star label may soon vanish from the market. The reason, US representatives dared to say, is government efficiency.

The Energy Star program was launched by the first Bush Administration in 1992 to promote energy efficiency and help consumers make informed purchasing decisions. It operates through a voluntary partnership between government and industry. According to the EPA, Energy Star is one of the most successful voluntary initiatives in U.S. history, recognized worldwide. Since its inception, it has helped save an estimated 5 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity and more than $500 billion in energy costs.

EPA figures also indicate that the program has prevented approximately 4 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by improving the efficiency of energy-hungry appliances. Households that choose Energy Star-certified products can save around $450 annually on utility bills. Every federal dollar spent on the program has resulted in roughly $350 in energy cost savings for businesses and consumers.

So why is the Trump administration eliminating the successful Energy Star program? According to Molly Vaseliou, acting EPA Associate Administrator for Public Affairs, the agency is undergoing a "phase of reorganization" aimed at improving air, water, and land quality for all Americans. However, this plan includes cutting both the Office of Transportation and Air Quality and the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, the very departments responsible for managing Energy Star.

Vaseliou claims that ending Energy Star specifications will contribute to making Americans safer. But Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), argues that the decision will only drive up energy bills for American families. Without access to clear efficiency standards, consumers will struggle to identify the best products for their needs and budgets.

Killing Energy Star specifications will make Americans safe again, Vaseliou suggests.

According to Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), getting rid of the program will just raise the energy bills of American families. With no access to basic specifications about energy efficiency, customers will have no easy way to choose the best offer they can get for their needs and their home budget.

Eliminating the Energy Star program will also undermine numerous energy efficiency and rebate initiatives run by utilities, states, and federal agencies, according to the ACEEE. In a recent letter to the EPA, nearly 1,100 companies and organizations urged the Trump administration to continue funding Energy Star for the foreseeable future.

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Trump's plan to eliminate Energy Star could raise utility bills for American families, experts say

 

[Theinsanegamer]

God the moralizing from these "experts".

You know what else hurts low income households?

Expensive appliances that fail after 3-4 years because you needed to shave 1% off its energy use, so they had to use a fancy pump design that doesnt last, so the poor are kept perpetually in poverty trying to get ahead as everything goes to **** constantly.

I'd rather pay $5 more a month then have to replace my fridge every 5 years, and a LOT of people agree with that. Dont forget all the WASTE created by having to constantly replace those appliances. All the "muh enviroment" arguments ignore the huge amount of waste created by these policies.

 

[Haaky]

Not a surprise. Anything the American government should be doing to help people and make there lives better, Trump and his party of Nazis' are gonna do the opposite.

Maybe you Americans should wake up, and take your country back before its to late.

 

[pnntmp]

How exactly a sticker makes a device more efficient, or "making Americans safer", or any of the other BS?

Such program may have been justified in the early 1990s, but today anyone can pull up the datasheet of any appliance for less than a minute. There are plenty of websites doing very good reviews and comparisons, and since recently LLMs can do the same.
So what's the purpose of the sticker exactly, except to maintain a whole lot of useless bureaucracy?

If anyone is interested in having the sticker on their devices, they can jointly finance the program themselves. There's no need the taxpayer to do that.

 

[Stoly]

So which GPU is energy star compliant?

 

[umeng2002]

Absolutely no one checks this information when buying an appliance. People just want them to last longer.

 

[opckieran]

The implication here is that Energy Star reversed a trend of decreasing appliance efficiency, while in reality there is nothing to suggest that wasn’t already happening before the program was implemented. Programs like this love to jump on existing positive reversals and take the credit. NHTSA is the same for vehicle safety.

Either way, like some of the commenters above mentioned, I’m happy to pay $5-10/yr more in electricity in exchange for an appliance that won’t fall apart in 3-4 years.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Absolutely no one checks this information when buying an appliance. People just want them to last longer.

I don't remember anyone complaining about bronze, gold, platinum and titanium power supplies. Should they only care about longevity too?

 

[rhavenn]

God the moralizing from these "experts".

You know what else hurts low income households?

Expensive appliances that fail after 3-4 years because you needed to shave 1% off its energy use, so they had to use a fancy pump design that doesnt last, so the poor are kept perpetually in poverty trying to get ahead as everything goes to **** constantly.

I'd rather pay $5 more a month then have to replace my fridge every 5 years, and a LOT of people agree with that. Dont forget all the WASTE created by having to constantly replace those appliances. All the "muh enviroment" arguments ignore the huge amount of waste created by these policies.

Nagh, that's more the corps going as cheap as possible on parts to please their shareholders. They could still make appliances that last 20 years if they wanted to. That just doesn't help their bottom line and/or consumers just want the cheapest option. It has nothing to do with energy star or not. Energy star, ultimately, is a "quick summary" of how far a consumers watts will go. However, it has no direct correlation to "quality" or "longevity". If anything, a higher energy star rating will cause your fridge to work less and last longer.

 

[Str8Shot]

Any homeowner of the past 20-30 years understands how “he” (high-efficiency) and “energy-star” appliances have become useless at their function, with special emphasis on washing machines that are nothing of the past, before all these phony regulations reduced utility usage at the expense of quality/purpose of the appliance.

The real issue to be addressed, as always, is the source of the problem: cost of utilities. Despite 21st century technologies, we somehow keep spending more and more. I always learned that with time, production of anything, becomes more efficient, yielding more for less. It’s not true because we have a depreciating currency, because we have a Federal Reserve that loans us money with interest because somehow we can’t do it ourselves despite our Constitution calling for it…

 

[Str8Shot]

How exactly a sticker makes a device more efficient, or "making Americans safer", or any of the other BS?

Such program may have been justified in the early 1990s, but today anyone can pull up the datasheet of any appliance for less than a minute. There are plenty of websites doing very good reviews and comparisons, and since recently LLMs can do the same.
So what's the purpose of the sticker exactly, except to maintain a whole lot of useless bureaucracy?

If anyone is interested in having the sticker on their devices, they can jointly finance the program themselves. There's no need the taxpayer to do that.

The sticker denotes an appliance is certified to use a certain amount of power running a typical cycle. It’s not “useless” because it conveys certain facts about the appliance. The certified appliance however, is different than their non-certified appliances because it’ll use less power, less water, etc.

Remember those washing machines from 20-30 years ago that had half the drum full of water that actually washed your clothes…? Those were the days.

In an ironic way, people were more conscious of their usage back then BECAUSE they were less efficient (more power more water), and washed less often; now with the certification, one no longer has to care about that because the appliance forces it upon you.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

4 billion metric tonnes is a lot of lost plant food.

 

[wiyosaya]

God the moralizing from these "experts".

You know what else hurts low income households?

Expensive appliances that fail after 3-4 years because you needed to shave 1% off its energy use, so they had to use a fancy pump design that doesnt last, so the poor are kept perpetually in poverty trying to get ahead as everything goes to **** constantly.

I'd rather pay $5 more a month then have to replace my fridge every 5 years, and a LOT of people agree with that. Dont forget all the WASTE created by having to constantly replace those appliances. All the "muh enviroment" arguments ignore the huge amount of waste created by these policies.

I bought an Energy Star compliant fridge in 2006. After having the fan replaced around 2008, its still going strong today. IMO, its a myth they don't last as long, at least from my experience.

Of course, if all you are looking at is how little you can for an appliance, then you should expect it to not last long.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

I bought an Energy Star compliant fridge in 2006. After having the fan replaced around 2008, its still going strong today. IMO, its a myth they don't last as long, at least from my experience.

Of course, if all you are looking at is how little you can for an appliance, then you should expect it to not last long.

Yours lasted 2 years by your own admission.

 

[wiyosaya]

Yours lasted 2 years by your own admission.

Uh -huh. Replacing a fan is not replacing the entire refrigerator, but I would expect nothing less from someone demonstrating illogical thought.

I suppose you would have replaced the entire refrigerator. Its no wonder why people like you think that modern appliances don't last as long.

Are you a stable genius, too?

 

[pelopidas]

Not a surprise. Anything the American government should be doing to help people and make there lives better, Trump and his party of Nazis' are gonna do the opposite.

Maybe you Americans should wake up, and take your country back before its to late.

We did. This is what it looks like. But you think that Apple will suddenly decide to give us 30 minutes of battery life in an IPhone because they don’t get a little energy star helmet sticker from the government? The only thing this program has done is give us products that break early and produce waste. But you, a non American decide it is fine to call us Nazis because we didnt vote for the other guys who are politically more aligned with your belief structure I would assume. And this has to do with Energy Star ratings how exactly?
What are you even so angry about that you call people Nazis who you have never met?

 

[amghwk]

And the majority of Americans voted for this joker.

 

[godrilla]

We did. This is what it looks like. But you think that Apple will suddenly decide to give us 30 minutes of battery life in an IPhone because they don’t get a little energy star helmet sticker from the government? The only thing this program has done is give us products that break early and produce waste. But you, a non American decide it is fine to call us Nazis because we didnt vote for the other guys who are politically more aligned with your belief structure I would assume. And this has to do with Energy Star ratings how exactly?
What are you even so angry about that you call people Nazis who you have never met?

Yeah Nazis hated capitalism and loved state sponsored ones. It's like the pot calling kettle black!

 

[SRB]

I don't remember anyone complaining about bronze, gold, platinum and titanium power supplies. Should they only care about longevity too?

The reason no one complained is just like the energy star sticker......No one pays any attention to it. Wattage first, long life and quality components, steady power levels, proper safety circuits that work, and then, if I were to find two power supplies that equally adept at all of those, I MIGHT, repeat MIGHT, look at the efficiency ratings.

No one cares if it uses a few watts more energy when they're overclocking a 14900KS to the moon, they just want the system to work properly and the power supply to not blow up.

 

[SRB]

I bought an Energy Star compliant fridge in 2006. After having the fan replaced around 2008, its still going strong today. IMO, its a myth they don't last as long, at least from my experience.

Of course, if all you are looking at is how little you can for an appliance, then you should expect it to not last long.

Energy star is not a vote up or down on an appliance's quality. Everything has an energy star sticker......It's the regulations that kill everything. Have to use the latest and greatest refrigerant due to global warming potential...never mind that it's a sealed system, the latest refrigerant cost 10 times as much, and needs higher pressures to operate, making the components more expensive. Or the tricks with ratings. our new dishwasher has cycles that take over 3 hours to run. But think of the savings in energy, since it doesn't additionally heat the hot water unless you tell it to every cycle. Why, so we can save energy. Never mind that our water heater is in the attic on the other side of the house, and I wouldn't even be using hot water due to the distance and lower fill levels.

 

[SRB]

Yours lasted 2 years by your own admission.

Actually, your looking at this all wrong....there's nothing stopping anyone from buying a bullet proof fridge...there are lots of them Sub Zero, Thermador, Viking....all you need is about $12,000 or so. It's just us common folk that have to deal with planned obsolescence.

 

[toooooot]

Key word is could. The reality is probably not

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I don't remember anyone complaining about bronze, gold, platinum and titanium power supplies. Should they only care about longevity too?

1.) they absolutely did, you dont remember people talking about how this would result in higher PSU costs. Titanium supplies especially are ridiculously pricy for little benefit over Platinum rated models. Thankfully advances in electronic manufacturing prevented the prices from remaining inflated for long for gold and lower rated models.

2) solid state electronics are a different animal from mechanical components.

I bought an Energy Star compliant fridge in 2006. After having the fan replaced around 2008, its still going strong today. IMO, its a myth they don't last as long, at least from my experience.

Of course, if all you are looking at is how little you can for an appliance, then you should expect it to not last long.

2006 was nearly 20 years ago. That was before the modern trend of appliances only lasting 3-5 years tops. My fridge from 2004 works great. The family's and friends fridges from the mid to late 2010s are much more hit or miss.

The HVAC techs I've worked with have explained to me that this is caused by the modern two stage coolant pumps, which are smaller and higher pressure to use less energy, but a by product is that the bearings and other moving components are smaller, and with less overprovisioning, they wear faster and fail much earlier. All this was in pursuit of meeting modern efficiency standards.

The same thing applies to the likes of cars and other machines. In the pursuit of efficiency, a noble goal in of itself, we have pushed too far and created devices with terrible longevity encouraged by our throw away culture. We'd be better off having the 2000s levels of power use and putting all the money spent on replacing these things into building new nuke plants or solar fields.

Actually, your looking at this all wrong....there's nothing stopping anyone from buying a bullet proof fridge...there are lots of them Sub Zero, Thermador, Viking....all you need is about $12,000 or so. It's just us common folk that have to deal with planned obsolescence.

Exactly. There are very expensive washers, fridges, ece that last a very long time. 20 years ago, the budget models for consumers were also very reliable, but today it's become pay to play, and unless you are willing to dump used car money on an appliance expect a sub 10 year lifetime, and of course planned obsolescence because none of the electronic controllers are generic and replacements are to made, whereas older models used generic analog controllers and mechanical parts that were available for decades.

 

[umeng2002]

I don't remember anyone complaining about bronze, gold, platinum and titanium power supplies. Should they only care about longevity too?

Your fridge, washing machine, etc. are not powered on for that long. Your PC can be on for hours straight.

 

[The Talking Tech]

Well Trump has destroyed the country's economy, his most illogical thing to do next is to personally make people's electric bills go up even higher.