Product is Energy Star Certified, But Not Available To The Public
The gas-powered Black-Gold model clock radio is sleek, durable, easy on your electric bill and surprisingly quiet.
Most of us want to be good stewards to the environment, and in these tough economic times we’d all like to save a buck or two in the process. If that’s true for you, you’re probably interested in the government’s Energy Star program, a joint venture between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DoE) that is intended to help “us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices“. Energy Star is all about recognizing products that meet strict energy efficiency guidlines so that we can all make smarter choices, and reward companies that are making superior products.
So, as a service to consumers out there, I’d like to recommend the Black-Gold model alarm clock-radio manufactured by Spartan Digital Electronics, Inc. According to their website, it is gas-powered, easy on your electric bill, and Energy Star certified. It also approximates the size of a small portable generator for “increased ease while traveling”.
A gasoline-powered alarm clock? Is this for real?
Well, no, it isn’t. Neither is Spartan Digital Electronics, allegedly based in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. It’s purely a creation of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which prides itself on being “the congressional watchdog”. They came to the conclusion that since $300 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money is designated for “state rebate programs on energy-efficient products”, there just might some fraud and abuse connected to Energy Star certification, and decided to look into it. So, they made up 4 bogus manufacturing firms like Spartan Digital, took undercover roles as employees of these ficticious companies, and dreamed up 20 bogus products to be submitted for Energy Star certification to the EPA or the DoE.
Ok, fine. Surely nobody bit on the gas-powered alarm clock, right?
Wrong. Fifteen of the 20 phonies were approved in the three-month period that the sting was conducted, including the infamous gasoline-powered alarm clock. Only two were rejected. The GAO’s phony companies hadn’t heard back from the EPA on the last three by the end of the sting, so we don’t know if they’d have eventually been approved or not. Here’s an example of a “Room Air Cleaner” that was given Energy Star approval by the EPA:
If you think this looks just like a space heater with a feather duster and some fly strips stuck on it, you’d be right – that’s exactly what it is. But if you could buy one, you could qualify for a rebate under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. (No, you can’t buy a space heater and a feather duster, glue them together and get a rebate for that…but you could probably go into business selling them as “Energy Star-approved Room Air Cleaners”.)
Now, how was all this possible? It couldn’t just be that the good people at the EPA and the DOE were just asleep at the switch, could it?
Well, it seems that they were. Five of the bogus products were approved within 1 business day of being submitted for certification. In one case, a phoney computer monitor, Energy Star requested that the phoney manufacturer “expedite” the submission of their (phoney) product data so that the (bogus) product could be placed on the Energy Star Qualified Product list in time for the 2009 holiday season. The non-existant computer monitor was approved less than 30 minutes after the undercover GAO investigator submitted the (phoney) data electronically to the Energy Star office. I’m sure they did a real in-depth examination of that product’s merits, and got it done before lunch, too.
One of my favorite fakes was the External Power Supply Adapter that got listed on the Energy Star website. The GAO realized that the jig was up when private companies started making purchase inquiries to the phoney manufacturer based on the information they got from the Energy Star site. Apparently, these companies had more initiative than the EPA regulators did who approved the Black-Gold gas-powered clock radio…during the sting, the Spartan Digital Electronics website got no hits from the EPA or their Energy Star office. You can pick out your own favorite fake from the GAO report in this link.
One of the things that the GAO investigators found was that once they had set up their phoney companies, it only took a couple of weeks and very little effort on their part (and apparently, even less fact-checking by Energy Star) to become “Energy Star Partners” with a “My Energy Star Account” (MESA). They also found that once they had a MESA, they had access to all sorts of Energy Star labling and promotional materials. As you can see by visiting the Spartan Digital Products page, once they had access to the Energy Star logo, they could place it on any of their products as they pleased. I’d like to offer a tip of the hat to the GAO folks for not putting an Energy Star logo by the two Spartan Digital products that were not approved, an “End-Use Product” that was described to Energy Star as an “electric office hammer”, and a battery charging system that the EPA never got around to approving or rejecting.
Apparently, the GAO wasn’t the only outfit playing fast and loose with Energy Star labels. Haier America entered into a consent decree with the DoE back in January, agreeing to send repairmen to the homes of customers who had bought one of four models of Haier freezers advertised as Energy Star compliant that really weren’t. (Lest you think that Haier America is a good American corporation who simply made a mistake on their Energy Star paperwork, you should know who really owns Haier America and where they are based.) And also in January, LG Electronics was also ordered by the DoE to take Energy Star stickers off of several models of refrigerators that they were selling.
So how did Hair and LG get caught fudging the numbers on their Energy Star applications? Were the DoE watchguards on top of this one?
Nope. Their competitors ratted them out (page 16, if you care to check).
So, apart from that aforementioned $300 million, why should you care about Energy Star certification? Well, as one of my favorite bloggers pointed out, these are the same people who will soon be administering your health care. Good luck!
