Trump Administration Sets Its Sights on the Energy Star Program
2250 megawatt coal-fired power plant
From the American Energy Society:
The Trump administration is looking into shutting down Energy Star, a 25-year-old voluntary regulatory program run by the EPA. Launched in 1992, Energy Star sets efficiency standards in more than 70 product categories, including appliances, heating and cooling, and lighting equipment. However, the “Energy Star” program has enormous bipartisan support: the George W. Bush administration set up the standard; it is entirely voluntary; the program costs less than $60 million a year to operate; and, it has reduced the sum total of all energy bills by about $31 billion. Here’s the leaked memo that substantiates this.
There are dozens of aspects of the Trump administration that cause the majority of Americans to want it “gone,” as they say. But the single most loathsome is its meanness of spirit. Here you have a program that’s saving huge amounts of energy, saves 19 times what it costs to operate, and makes our environment better able to support health for all living things. It’s not even a restriction; it’s voluntary.
Sorry, that’s too good; it’s gotta go.
Pure evil.
Craig,
The EPA is a government agency, funded by the US taxpayer. Internal memo’s, position papers and other confidential documents must be kept confidential by the government employees who have sworn an oath to keep such documents confidential.
“Activist actions” by employee with a “political agenda” against any administration, are by definition criminals. Being convinced you are politically righteous when committing an offense as a civil servant, is not an excuse.
Leaking documents is not only a crime, but creates an atmosphere where the civil service becomes entangled in politics and breaches the essential disconnect between impartial administration of policy and political partisan activity.
Your definition of “Pure Evil”, devalues the term. The administration is elected by the political process to create and set policy, which a non-political Civil Service is charged to implement.
Civil servants who decide to become politically active and commit acts of a political nature (except in extreme circumstances) are simply criminals, selfishly pursuing their own agenda and breaching the trust of the US taxpayer who pays their salaries.
The elected President is putting into operation a campaign promise to reduce the size and expense of the US bureaucracy. Such decisions fall into the lawful prerogative of elected officials, not the civil service.
Elected legislators and the President will answer to the US voters for their actions, but when civil servants decide to act as unelected “resistance” to political authority in determining public policy, they become criminals.
By encouraging such behaviour and using “leaked” documents to political advantage, the media become complicit in undermining the foundations of democratic government principles.
There is a place for “whistleblowers” which is recognized in law. When a civil servant discovers a clear criminal conspiracy or crime committed by an elected official or officials, and acts without political or selfish motive to bring such acts to the notice of the US public, then such an action may be justified as serving the greater good .
It’s not sufficient to for a public servant to simply decide they don’t like a proposed change in policy to justify a breach of the oath of office they swore and continue to be paid by the taxpayer to undermine democratically elected authority.
If a good and useful program is abolished or rendered ineffective, it’s the sole prerogative of of the US voter to respond by not reelecting the politician, or Congress to pass legislation to restore the program.
Not “pure evil” just the US democratic process.
$60 million for a program like Energy Star is trivial. There has got to be a way to fund the program outside of govermnent budgets!
How many Energy Star compliant items are sold in a year? My guess is it runs to hundreds of millions, possibly even billions. If the designation was subject to a small royalty payment of say 50 cents on a fridge, freezer, washing machine, or air conditioning unit, or 5 cents on an LED light bulb, then surely the market could bear the cost!