The Federal Energy Police are Getting Serious -- and Seriously Inept

The Energy Department has set itself up as the new energy sheriff, even going so far as to hunt down retailers for selling appliances that don't meet minimum federal efficiency standards. But the agency and its deputy, the EPA, risk coming off as the Keystone Kops instead, as the comic mismanagement of the Energy Star efficiency program shows.

Last year, the DOE announced that it would finally start enforcing both minimum federal efficiency standards and Energy Star, a voluntary labeling program run jointly with the EPA. And it wasn't kidding. In the past few months, the DOE has cracked down on several manufacturers, including LG Electronics and Haier America, for misuse of the Energy Star logo. And just a few days ago, the DOE issued subpoenas to Target (TGT), Adesso and Habitex for making and selling a standing lamp that doesn't meet minimum efficiency standards.

Apparently, the EPA didn't get the memo. A congressional audit of Energy Star released today, for instance, found that the EPA approved fifteen bogus products submitted by the Government Accountability Office, including a gas-powered alarm clock. All received Energy Star certifications. One computer monitor was approved within 30 minutes and two of the fake Energy Star firms created by the GAO actually received requests from real companies to buy products because they were listed as Energy Star partners.

The audit is more than one embarrassing incident in an otherwise successful program. Energy Star has been around for nearly two decades, but inadequate federal testing and oversight helped it lose credibility years ago. An internal audit last year echoed what many suspected all along: The Energy Department wasn't properly tracking whether manufacturers using the Energy Star label actually met the energy efficiency requirements.

Those failings are aggravated by the fact that $300 million in federal stimulus money went for rebates to consumers who buy Energy Star products. That doesn't include an extension on energy tax credits for homeowners who make energy-efficient improvements to their existing homes.

While the EPA has been busy approving gas-powered alarm clocks, the DOE seems intent on hunting down every possible inefficient appliance. And this GAO audit will only fuel DOE's gestapo gusto even more. Expect the agency to increase the enforcement this year, in large part because it has a lot of catching up to do. It would be helpful if the EPA did its part and prevented more energy suckers from joining the Energy Star club.

Here's a rundown of recent energy enforcement by the DOE and EPA:

• In January, the DOE gave appliance makers a 30-day window to submit energy use data for their products as part one of its stricter enforcement program. The agency received reports from 160 different manufacturers, covering more than 600,000 residential products.
• The EPA and DOE outlined a plan to strengthen the Energy Star program. The DOE began tests on six of the most common product types including freezers, refrigerator-freezers, clothes washers, dishwashers, water heaters and room air conditioners. The agency plan to test 200 basic models at third-party labs over the next few months.
• The DOE discovered four of Haier's freezer models were consuming more energy than reported. Haier had to notify all affected customers and repair any defective units and has paid $150,000 to the U.S. Treasury;
• LG Electronics, as of Jan. 2, is banned from using the Energy Star label on its French-door refrigerator-freezers;
• DOE disqualified 34 models from 25 manufacturers that did not meet all of the Energy Star criteria for compact fluorescent light bulbs;
• DOE began enforcement actions against four shower head makers who failed to certify 116 product models as meeting the federal water conservation standards;
• DOE took civil penalty action against a manufacturer of air conditioners and heat pumps for failing to certify some of its products and for certifying other products when they had not been tested in accordance to DOE procedure;
• Enforcement against tow additional shower head makers suspected of selling products that don't meet federal water conservation standards;
• EPA notified US Inc./US Refrigeration that their partnership with Energy Star was terminated because of a history of logo misuse, unresponsiveness and a pattern of failure to comply with Energy Star guidelines.