EPA Moves Quickly to Tighten Energy Star Qualification Rules

The EPA moved quickly to tighten Energy Star qualification rules after the GAO in a probe managed to certify 15 bogus products, including a gas-powered alarm clock (GED March 29 p1). The GAO said its investigation showed that Energy Star was vulnerable to fraud and abuse.

In a memo to stakeholders late Tuesday, the EPA said it would not allow the Energy Star label to be used on products, Web sites and product literature without agency approval of manufacturers’ “qualifying product information, including a lab report.” The agency already has started working on tightening the requirements for qualification and verification testing under an agreement with the Department of Energy (GED Jan 28 p1). The EPA said in its memo that the GAO report showed that the Energy Star “product qualification process was not sufficient to prevent manufacturers choosing to falsify information,” and so it has decided to “accelerate” efforts to strengthen qualification and verification requirements.

Other changes that take immediate effect include suspension of the “online product submittal” system. “We expect to resume product qualification for affected product categories in two weeks or less,” the agency said. Once the system is back online, makers of products like TVs, audio and video devices, computers, displays, external power supplies, imaging equipment and telephony can continue to use the system but must provide a lab report for each model for review and approval, it said. Henceforth, first-time Energy Star partners would not be “granted access” to the Energy Star label upon joining the program, it said. They will be allowed to use it only after “a qualifying product is submitted and approved,” it said. For most products that currently don’t need a lab report, the agency is “temporarily suspending product qualification” while it “takes steps to ensure smooth implementation of new requirements.” More information on the new rules would come in two weeks, the agency said.

On a Wednesday conference call for CE and IT stakeholders, Kathleen Vokes, Energy Star program manager, said she could not give a time line for implementing the changes. “The memo says it’s immediate,” she said, but “we have to come up with processes for implementing all these requirements.” On proposed changes to Energy Star qualification and verification testing, the EPA is “taking a slightly different approach” for CE and IT products, she said. The main difference between what’s proposed in verification testing for other products and CE and IT devices is that “instead of having these products be registered in an approved certification program we are looking at a quality assurance testing program to service the verification testing,” she said.

So not “every single” CE or IT product will be tested every three years,” Vokes said. “Instead we will have spot checks on products every year,” in an effort to “minimize the burden in terms of additional testing for these products,” she said. “For other products we are requiring participation in a certification program” that will be responsible for both qualification and verification testing, she said. Vokes clarified that the different verification approach for CE and IT products wasn’t to “relax the requirements.” Many of the CE and IT products differ from other household appliances in that their “models change very frequently” and there are “multiple configurations in all of these models,” Vokes said. And most of the models won’t be in the market for three years, she said.

"So rather than trying to put these products on schedule for testing over three years and look at all these configurations it seems to make more sense to do a targeted selection” and test a sample every year that will “give us confidence that the products are continuing to meet the requirements.” The agency isn’t planning to limit the use of testing labs to those in the U.S., she said. Overseas labs can be used if they have the “proper accreditation,” she said. The EPA is looking to “reference” some of the testing that’s being done by programs like Underwriters Labs, she said.