Energy Star Climate Change Claims Misleading, Audit Finds
WASHINGTON, DC, December 31, 2008 (ENS) - A voluntary program promoted by the federal government to boost energy efficiency and cut greenhouse gas emissions does not work as advertised, according to a new audit by the Inspector General of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The Inspector General's report on the federal Energy Star program concludes that many of the touted benefits could not be verified.
Energy Star is a 16 year old voluntary program administered by the Energy Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that covers more than 50 product categories such as lighting, home electronics, office equipment, and home heating and cooling. The program establishes nationwide guidelines and uses a logo that identifies energy-efficient products.
The EPA Inspector General's audit, released December 17, is the latest report finding that voluntary, market-based programs relied upon by the current administration and several states have poor track records and do not produce reliable results, says Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER.
In 2006, for example, the program accounted for more than half of EPA's claimed contributions to greenhouse gas reductions but the Inspector General debunked those claims.
"We found the Energy Star program's reported savings claims were inaccurate and the reported annual savings unreliable," states the IG report.
"Deficiencies included the lack of a quality review of the data collected; reliance on estimates, forecasting, and unverified third party reporting; and the potential inclusion of exported items," the report explains.
In 2006, the Energy Star program reported avoiding a total of 37.6 million metric tons of carbon equivalent. It further reported that Energy Star helped prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 25 million vehicles while saving Americans $14 billion on their energy bills.
But that claim did not stand up to the auditors' examination. "Sales of formerly qualified products are used to determine Energy Star's market transformation benefits, but we found that this benefit was computed inconsistently," says the Inspector General's report. "Also, the methodology used to compute the Energy Star commercial sector benefits uses unverified assumptions."
The Inspector General's Office recommended that EPA establish and implement improved quality controls, and develop and consistently apply a data-driven methodology to compute market transformation effects.
The agency should also "validate the model for calculating the benefits of the Energy Star commercial sector to ensure it accurately reflects the sector's impacts," the report advises.
The IG report was sent by Assistant Inspector General Wade Najjum to Robert Meyers, principal deputy assistant administrator in the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation.
"EPA disagreed with many of our conclusions, but stated it had implemented some of the recommendations," the IG report states.
"However, some of EPA's planned actions do not meet the intent of our recommendations, and we consider these recommendations open and unresolved," the Inspector General's Office says.
In September, "Consumer Reports" magazine published an Energy Star evaluation that found "lax standards and out-of-date test protocols that are not independently verified" weaken the federal program.
"The percent of products that qualify for Energy Star is increasing because standards are too easy to reach and federal test procedures haven't kept pace with new technology," the magazine states.
To qualify for an Energy Star logo, companies self-certify that their products comply with the standards. The Energy Department does not test products for compliance with Energy Star standards, and often there is no independent verification of what manufacturers report.
"These reports underline how hard it is to re-orient a massive economy away from dependence on carbon fuels," said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "The danger for the Obama administration is that it, too, will embrace ineffectual market-based approaches as the least politically painful path."
Ruch warns that Obama's EPA Administrator-designate Lisa Jackson is the former commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which produced the state's global warming plan. The plan relies heavily on the Energy Star program to achieve greenhouse gas reductions.
"The approach put forward by New Jersey earlier this month appears to repeat the same mistakes as those made by the Bush administration - heavy on aspiration but short on implementation," Ruch said. "It is one thing to set a goal but quite another to lay out a concrete plan that gets the job done."
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved.
Right Whales' Wintering Ground Found in Gulf of Maine
WOODS HOLE, Massachusetts, December 31, 2008 (ENS) - Dozens of North Atlantic right whales have been seen in the Gulf of Maine this month, leading right whale researchers at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center to believe they have identified a wintering ground and potentially a breeding ground for this critically endangered species.
The center's aerial survey team saw 44 individual right whales on December 3 in the Jordan Basin area, located about 70 miles south of Bar Harbor, Maine.
After centuries of whaling from the 1700s, North Atlantic right whales are nearly extinct. A worldwide total ban on right whaling was agreed upon in 1937. Only about 325 animals survive today in the western North Atlantic Ocean.
Weather permitting, the team regularly surveys the waters from Maine to Long Island and offshore 150 miles to the U.S.-Canadian border, an area of about 25,000 nautical square miles. The aerial surveys, conducted year-round, began in the 1990s.
"We're excited because seeing 44 right whales together in the Gulf of Maine is a record for the winter months, when daily observations of three or five animals are much more common," said Tim Cole, who heads the team.
"Right whales are baleen whales, and in the winter spend a lot of time diving for food deep in the water column," Cole said. "Seeing so many of them at the surface when we are flying over an area is a bit of luck."
On December 6, the team observed only three right whales on Cashes Ledge, about 80 miles east of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Cole says the whales are known to be in the region, but actually seeing any of them on any given aerial survey is unpredictable.
On December 14, the team saw 41 right whales just west of Jordan Basin.
Many female North Atlantic right whales head south in winter to give birth in the waters off Florida and Georgia, the only known calving ground for this population.
Little is known about where other right whales go in winter. Bad weather, the challenges of finding whales in such a large area, and the resources required to assess their distribution make winter sightings difficult.
"Sometimes we will see a whale we haven't seen in years, while other individuals are sighted fairly often," team member Pete Duley said, noting the existing library of photographs of individual right whales that observers have come to know by name based on the patterns of callosities, like barnacles, on the animal's heads.
"Because only about 100 right whales, mostly females and their calves, are sighted each year in aerial surveys off the southeast coast, we know the remainder of the population must be somewhere else," said Duley. "We don't know much about where these other whales spend the winter or breed, but we have recently started to look in the Gulf of Maine in winter."
With a population estimated to be about 325 whales, knowing where the whales are at any time is critical to protect them. Sighting whales can trigger a management action affording protection, such as slowing ship speeds in the vicinity of the whales.
On December 9, new federal speed rules for large ships went into effect to reduce ship strikes of whales, a leading cause of North Atlantic right whale mortality.
The aerial survey team is part of the NEFSC's Protected Species Branch based at the Center's Woods Hole Laboratory, which conducts research needed to manage protected species off the northeast coast of the United States from Maine to North Carolina.
The Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Florida, which also deploys aerial survey teams, has similar responsibilities for the southeastern region, which includes the Gulf of Mexico.
"The whales appear to follow the circulation system of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank and pursue their food," said Cole, who has been flying surveys for more than 15 years.
"In the winter many of the right whales seem to be in the middle of the Gulf of Maine and off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and by early spring move into Cape Cod Bay, then the Great South Channel and then eastward toward Georges Basin," said Cole. "By mid-summer they head north into the Bay of Fundy."
The survey team has used a variety of aircraft through the years, from helicopters to seaplanes to the current Twin Otter based at the nearby U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. A removable w
