There’s a good chance you’re part of the nearly 90 percent of American households that are aware of the Energy Star label that shows up on home appliances when you’re shopping for a new dishwasher or refrigerator. It’s a useful seal of approval, a signal of outsize efficiency and the lower utility bills that you’ll pay over time.
And now it’s in jeopardy thanks to the Trump administration’s desire to make cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency and eliminate the agency’s division that oversees the Energy Star program.
When the news emerged last week that there might soon be no more stickers on all sorts of appliances — from air-conditioning units to washing machines — one solution seemed obvious: The companies could pledge to set up their own version of the program, using independent third parties to assess their wares.
Simple, right? But none of the major appliance manufacturers that I approached would promise to do that. Many — including Frigidaire, Samsung and Sub-Zero — didn’t even respond to the multiple requests I made for comment.
Energy Star is a big deal, if you believe the E.P.A. According to a document on its website, the program has contributed to $500 billion — billion, with a “b” — in household and business energy savings since its 1992 launch.
Appliance manufacturers do not want Energy Star, in which participation is voluntary, to go away. They said as much in a March letter to the E.P.A., when they sensed that cuts might be coming.
But they don’t see the end of government support for the program to be a settled matter. A spokesman for Bosch’s home appliance group described the goings-on as “pending,” while an LG representative said any discussion of how it might promote superior efficiency to consumers in the future was premature.
Even if the E.P.A. does not reverse itself, the Department of Energy — which sets minimum efficiency standards for the home appliance industry — could step in to oversee Energy Star. The department did not respond to requests for comment on whether it would commit to doing so.
You can imagine the other conversations going on behind the scenes at each company that relies on the Energy Star label and its blessings.
Would it create consumer good will to be one of the first companies in this industry (or any competitive one) to stand up and say the cuts at the E.P.A. are absurd, given how useful Energy Star is? Sure. But would consumers, who don’t buy big appliances often, even remember who spoke up first? Probably not.
Moreover, this is an environment where silence can pay real dividends. President Trump ran on a platform of using his office to punish people he doesn’t like.
Yes, any one company — or all of them together — could vow to restart Energy Star if necessary. Being defiant about it, however, just makes you vulnerable to a tariff, an executive order or who knows what. And that goes doubly for reasonable people at the Department of Energy who might otherwise publicly and immediately announce their intention to step in to save the program.
All of that can look like cowardice, but it’s probably just prudence if you are steadfast in your commitment to preserving the program or something like it.
Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit research group, raised his own objection to an industry-sponsored Energy Star replacement: It might not be credible.
“One of the reasons it is so popular is that people see the government as an unbiased source of information,” he said.
But would there be at least some benefit if different trade groups stepped in to maintain Energy Star? Almost certainly, even if they have to spend some money to do it.
There is a world in which someone in the Trump administration wakes up to the sheer lack of logic here. If a regulated industry wants its customers to save another $500 billion in the coming years by using less energy (and to pollute less as a side effect), then maintain the federal testing and rewards system that facilitates it.
One way or another, we’re about to find out whether we get to live in such a world.