Trump EPA to cut Energy Star program.

Ebell says companies should set their own definitions and standards:

Ebell’s team disbanded in January and did not write Trump’s budget plan, which envisions a privatization scheme where industry would set its own definitions for what products are efficient and police standards itself. But the team provided the administration with a confidential list of proposals aimed at helping the president fulfill his stated goal during the campaign of shrinking the agency as much as possible. Ebell has been one of the most visible critics of voluntary government energy efficiency programs like Energy Star.

“The EPA is meant to improve environmental quality,” said Ebell, director of environmental initiatives at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank on the forefront of disputing the scientific consensus on climate change, as well as the health impacts of tobacco. “I’m not sure what that has to do with how much energy consumers use. But a great deal of the work at EPA has been dedicated to that. The president made clear during the campaign he will get rid of as much of that as he possibly can.”

The voluntary program’s legions of loyalists say Energy Star has everything to with environmental quality. The nation’s biggest companies compete aggressively to win Energy Star labels for their products, which signal to consumers that everything from the air conditioners they purchase at Best Buy to the buildings where they lease office space engage advanced technologies to use the least possible amount of power. The eagerness to meet consumer demand for that seal of approval has driven firms to invest big in cutting energy use.

Energy Star has been a pillar of the federal government’s effort to fight climate change, with the EPA boasting that it has kept some 2.8 billion tons of greenhouse gas from escaping into the atmosphere — or roughly the equivalent produced from powering 36 million homes with electricity each year. It has enabled consumers and businesses to cut their energy bills more than $30 billion per year.

At an annual cost of $60 million to taxpayers, it is easily the cheapest and least burdensome initiative the federal government runs to help Americans lower their energy consumption. States have latched onto the program, awarding their own rebates and other incentives to utility customers who use Energy Star products.

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