Massive fraud in the EPA/DOE Energy Star Program. Automated system allows fake products to get approval.
WASHINGTON — Does a “gasoline-powered alarm clock” qualify for the EnergyStar label, the government stamp of approval for an energy-saving product?
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.
See photo below
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.
…
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.
Read the rest at the New York Times here.
A full report is available at the GAO:
Summary web page here.
Highlights PDF here
Detailed report PDF here
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Perfect example of how these knuckleheads will be running health care.
And while we discuss this amazing example of Fraud, those celebrating “Earth Day Hour” applaud any measure to prevent us from using energy, no matter the costs.
There are countries in the world that always have have Earth Day Hour!
Like North Korea!
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2010/03/its-always-earth-hour-in-north-korea.html
Unfortunately this is but an opportunity for government bureaucracy to expand further as clearly regulation is required on the regulators. A ‘reform’ package needs to be in place to bring the EPA into alignment with the newly mandated regulations. Transparency will be improved and there will be no behind closed door deals…. maybe Lisa can now get some advice from Cathy Zoi.
Kate (01:21:31) :
The references to bananas & immigration are sort of doffing the cap to the imminent status of Western nations due to climate change regulations.
DaveE.
You all need to be in trouble for Gaia bashing. Inciting hate.
…and to think that the average government job now pays more than the average private sector job in the US
This guy submitted this revolutionary breakthrough in automotive technology and won his Energy Star rating with this simple explanation of the merits of his newly developed device……….
http://home.comcast.net/~steveham21/turbo.mpg
So, how do we get EnergyStar certification for WUWT? I know – it’s runs on only one Watts, and gets 40 million page views, so that’s only 25 picoWatts/view. This is a significant improvement over the lifetime of and the continuous process improvements on the blog.
Wow, what a great idea. The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is only a few months away.
I’m immediately going to apply for a goverment grant to obtain several million dollars to build these alarm clocks. My plan to save energy is to give these away free at the rally. The dozens of people who will take them home and replace their energy wasting electric alarm clocks will save so much energy it will delay the need to build any more power plants….ever!
And who said there is no advantage to having a US goverment stamp of approval?
Nice spring weather today. Finally after blizzard last weekend. I will fire up my Energy Star Weber charcoal grill and smoke some meat. I have clear/clean Gulf Oil charcoal lighter fluid.
I add some organic free range mesquite to get low carbon footprint smoke.
Did I mention the beef cattle are vegetarians? Yes sir. I eat beef from non meat eating herds.
Did ctm get one of these for his birthday?
I *want* one of those alarm clocks – totally cool (well, ok, probably kinda warm when it runs)
I’m sure the new health care system will be run with just as much attention to detail.
And people actually WANT government run health care?
The sad thing is that everybody seems to EXPECT this kind of incompetence, corruption, and lame excuses. And government employees are paid well above what people make in the private sector, with generous pensions.
Where is the outrage? Where are the firings? Where are the prosecutions?
A gasoline powered alarm clock gets the energy efficiency award? How absurd. Everyone knows that diesel is far more efficient than gasoline…
Only in the Government. . . .
The response of EPA Maria Vargas is CLASSIC bureaucratise.
And this is the Government that is going to give us Cap & Tax, Government-run health care, etc. We live in perilous times. . . .
“There was “no fraud,” Ms. Vargas emphasized”
On a separate note, Ms. Vargas also emphasized there was no fraud in government run health care and climate change
Here’s the engine to run the clock:
Another great example of a program that a Republican Congress should “zero out” in 2011. Just refuse to budget funding for it. Then it dies. Period.
While they’re at it, zero out the salaries of the 16,000 IRS agents that are going to be our Soviet overseers regarding our health insurance.
(There’s got to be a way to use “Zero Out” as a campaign slogan.)
ZERO OUT ZERO’S AGENDA
TIME FOR A DIFFERENT KIND OF ZERO
Suggestions?
Not quite OT; at least tangential to the topic at hand, one of our esteemed Washington leaders at NHTSA has said:
This was Ray La Hood (head of HTSA and senile, I think), the same guy who said initially said Toyota owners should stop driving their cars …
This was in a posting by LEORA BROYDO VESTEL titled: Transportation Department Embraces Bikes, and Business Groups Cry Foul March 26, 2010, 10:03 am
Some of the responses were quite poignant, e.g.:
.
.
Government bureaucrats are “paper pushers”. Government employees, like most everyone else, do what they are rewarded for doing. They are rewarded for seeing to it that the paperwork is in order according to “regulations”. They are not rewarded for, and would probably be penalized as a result of, actually going outside the box and spending paid time to question whether that paperwork actually made any economic sense. They know what their job is and “that ain’t it”!
The only real bottom line most government agencies are subjected to is one single consideration: “Do we have enough funding to make payroll?” What passes for ambition in such an organization is embodied in a second single consideration: “How can we get more money to hire more people and enlarge our payroll?” That is the behavior the system rewards and that is why many argue that government should only perform those functions that cannot be accomplished any other way. Attempts to introduce individual economic incentives into the government workplace almost always result in screams from the public of “abuse of power” (think traffic cops or IRS agents on commission).
Well, somewhere, the sun is over the yard arm. I’m pouring a stiff one.
Reminds me of the line of 3 Days Of The Condor: “You think not getting caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth.”
Having the government measure “energy efficiency” is just begging for this kind of result. People who have to pay for their energy make rational decisions about it, and a government program that ignores how much that efficiency increases the product’s costs, how long the product will last, and how much the energy it saves over that time will cost is bogus to begin with. The fact they don’t even do as little as they promise is just adding insult to injury.
Can’t get this to imbed but if you should market your alarm, Anthony,
may it sound like this:
Caution those sensitves to unburned hydrocarbons and raw horsepower
may be freaking alarmed all others-enjoy…
Brought tears to this old Douglas driver eyes…
Bob Tisdale (04:44:22)
I was wonderibg what size motor that was, too. I could use something like that in a hardtail frame I have kicking around. Gets me up and to work on time and it’s a blast to ride!!!