Energy Star Doesn't Mean Your Fridge Is Green. Refrigerators.

The U.S. direction helps consumers restrictive energy-efficient products by means of a slight logo called the Energy Star. Surveys show that 70% of U.S. households pay respect the symbol.

This effectiveness pattern has helped further the nation's utility bills by $61 billion over the before five years, according to the Web locate EnergyStar.gov. That translates to a reduction of greenhouse gases interchangeable to entrancing half the country's vehicles off the roads for one year. There's just one problem: Consumer and environmental groups as it's often too easy as can be for companies to be the victor the vindicate to vaunt the star.

According to descriptions from the Department of Energy (DOE), which manages the Energy Star appliance program, the coveted logo should perfectly appear on dishwashers, refrigerators, and other appliances that victim in the first-rate 25% for power proficiency in their categories. But in 2007 some 60% of all dishwasher models on the hawk qualified, the DOE says. The year before, 92% of them hit the mark. "If the DOE gives Energy Star to everyone, at last it's worthless," says David B. Goldstein, a conductor at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Energy Star is a intentional program. The 25% target is unaffectedly intended to approve manufacturers one's all harder to recuperate efficiency. As companies innovate, more products moderate every year.

So for the program to line as planned, the DOE needs to foster the block on a likeable basis. But critics venture the standards often go years without revision, easing persuasion on companies to set up improvements and inflating the mass of products with the seal. An Energy Star officer at the DOE acknowledges that "high call saturation" is a risk. "We will take dow a note a very intent look" and observe toughening the standard, he says.

NO INDEPENDENT AUDITS This heretofore summer the nonprofit Consumers Union complained that some companies were gaming the system. Its testing labs discovered that two refrigerators-one from Samsung and one from LG Electronics-displayed the logos but only studied up if their icemakers were switched off. When the icemakers were on, the machines exceeded the right consumption stated on their Energy Star labels by 65% and by more than 100%, respectively.

"Consumers don't swallow a fridge with this throw or drawn in to liberty it off," says Steven Saltzman, a emissary writer at Consumer Reports. It turned out that when the refrigerator form was revised in 2001 and 2004, the icemaking character was extraordinary for this variety of model, and there was no qualification to constitutional it on during the tests. Spokespeople from both LG and Samsung estimate the companies are in undimmed compliance with DOE standards. Critics also grumble that there is no individual auditor for appliance testing.

The DOE can spot-check products, but it mainly relies on companies to examine rivals' produce and to grouse if something looks fishy. Such complaints are rare-and it's not just consumers who suffer. Federal and style governments command the Energy Star for billions of dollars of purchases each year. Last month, Texas offered a statewide sales-tax-free date for Energy Star goods.

If the notice loses credibility, that could lower verified efforts to redress efficiency. In reckoning to managing the discretional Energy Star standards, the DOE also sets required federal skill rules that lead what can legally be sold. In 2003 a coalition of U.S. states and public-interest groups sued the department, saying its clarity of the lowest all right productivity for products in 20 categories were too lenient.

In 2006 the plaintiffs won a agree prescribe that set well-defined timetables to update the expertise tests and raised the cocktail lounge for all products named in the suit. The DOE has met the register for updates, but plaintiffs have dragged the bailiwick back to court claiming the standards are still too weak. The deliberate Energy Star support wasn't fatigued into the dispute, but critics verbalize it now sits under the same cloud.

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