What Corporate Media Isn’t Telling You About Trump’s Cuts To Decades-Old Energy Efficiency Program
21 hours ago Guest Blogger
From THE DAILY CALLER
Daily Caller News Foundation
Ireland Owens
Contributor
As corporate media outlets race to cast the Trump administration’s termination of an energy savings program as a net loss for Americans, experts note that the coverage omits several inconvenient facts.
Several news outlets have recently reported that the administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking to eliminate the Energy Star program, while seeming to gloss over criticism of the program and the fact it received multiple unsatisfactory reports from federal government audits. While Energy Star has reportedly saved American households and businesses over $500 billion in energy costs since 1992, some experts have warned that the program can negatively impact consumers, such as by pushing them to purchase less effective appliances.
“I guess the nicest thing I can say about the Energy Star program is that it’s not as bad as the energy efficiency regulations, because those are mandatory,” Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow who specializes in environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “But, the Energy Star label is at least supposedly voluntary, you don’t have to buy the Energy Star model, but that information is there if you want to.”
“That being said, I think the program has been misused in a variety of ways,” Lieberman added. “Environmental groups tend to pressure the big retailers to only carry Energy Star products, a lot of the tax credits that the government extends for [home] appliances only apply to the energy efficient or Energy Star models. So, it’s not as voluntary as it is made out to be … There’s also concerns that they’re trying to use the Energy Star program to pursue a climate agenda.” (RELATED: ‘Got To Go’: DOE To Cut Off Billions Of Dollars’ Worth Of Biden-Era Green Energy Projects)
“I would not be sad to see the [Energy Star] program go,” Lieberman told the DCNF.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/05/10/what-corporate-media-isnt-telling-you-about-trumps-cuts-to-decades-old-energy-efficiency-program/
