Energy Star beefs up certifications

The federal Energy Star program, which certifies products as energy efficient, has been caught out before. Something marked with the label turns out to not live up to the claims. But meanwhile, consumers have already purchased it, expecting to have bought an efficient TV or refrigerator or whatever.

Indeed, Consumer Reports recently checked out some of the claims and found problems, particularly in the fridge department. Two of the ones they tested used a whopping 50 percent more power than their labels claimed they would.

Today, the program announced new safeguards for the certification process. In the past, approval was pretty much an automated process. The program would establish the criteria, and manufacturers would inform Energy Star when they had met it.

Now, however, manufacturers have to submit complete lab reports and results to the Environmental Protection Agency and wait for approval before they put the Energy Star label on their products. By the end of the year, the lab reports will have to come from an approved, accredited lab.

The EPA and Department of Energy, which run the Energy Star program, boast that a recent Inspector General audit found that 98 percent of Energy Star products that were tested met the Energy Star specs. But the flip side, of course, is that two percent did not.

The Government Accountability Office recently submitted 20 bogus products for Energy Star certification. Fifteen were approved. One, it turns out, was for a gasoline-powered alarm clock.