The Government Accountability Office Punk'd Energy Star recently by submitting fake products and companies for certification. The Environmental Protection Agency's arbiters of efficiency standards rubber-stamped 15 out of 20 bogus products and a handful of fake firms became Energy Star Partners. Here are three of our favorite fabrications.
1. Tropical Thunder Appliances
To perform this investigation, the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) March 26, 2010, report states that it "used four bogus manufacturing firms and fictitious individuals to apply for Energy Star partnership." All four qualified. In fact, two of the fake firms received requests for real companies to buy their Energy Star–certified products—none of which exist.
Dummy websites emblazoned with Energy Star Partnerships remain online for each of the four front companies—Cool Rapport (HVAC equipment), Futurizon Solar Innovations (lighting), Spartan Digital Electronics, and Tropical Thunder Appliances.
2. The Feather-Duster Fly-Strip Air Freshener
Ostensibly an indoor air purifier, this item is actually a standard space heater spangled in strips of flypaper, with a feather duster perched up top.
The product was submitted without a standard safety file number from the Underwriters' Laboratories. Plus, the product's website did not include a disclaimer required for Energy Star certification. Last but not least, the garish photo submitted with the product's application portrays what is clearly a feather duster rigged to space heater. Nevertheless, these obstacles proved surmountable—the product was approved in 11 days and became listed on the Energy Star website.
Other great moments in rapid confirmation occurred for submissions of a nonexistent water cooler (approved in four days), a make-believe commercial HVAC unit (approved in one week), a bogus boiler qualified within one business day of submission and a dishwasher that also made the cut in a single day. But the record-setting Usain Bolt of fake Energy Star products has to be an imaginary computer monitor—the EPA requested expedited info so the machine could make a deadline for a Qualified Products list designed to guide shoppers during the 2009 holiday season. The GAO rapidly fired off some falsified test data, and the made-up monitor was approved and online within 30 minutes of submission.
3. The Gasoline-Powered Alarm Clock
On the application for Energy Star certification, this product's description stated that "the item is the size of a small generator and is powered by gasoline." The GAO never devised an image of this piece of nonexistent indoor power equipment, which would presumably make enough noise to temporarily wake consumers before carbon monoxide fumes sent them back to sleep for good. The dimensions are listed as 18 inches tall, 15 inches wide and 10 inches in depth. "Gas-powered clock radio is sleek, durable, easy on your electric bill, and surprisingly quiet," the product's marketing description states.
Approved!
The notion of being easy on the electric bill appears in the description of fake (approved) items that were less patently absurd than this one. The EPA didn't bat an eye at a geothermal heat pump that claimed to be fully 20 percent more efficient than qualified products at the top of the category. This gets to the heart of a prior critique of Energy Star—that manufacturers submit their own efficiency data, which isn't subject to independent verification. In the instance of a bogus dehumidifier granted certification (an appliance also billed as 20 percent more efficient than the category leader), the EPA did request an e-mail confirmation on the bogus test data. To get the Energy Star stamp, the GAO spies simply had to stick to the story.
Stories like this just make you feel good about our government, don't they?
Now, let us all join hands for a rousing rendition of "Kuumbaya".
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