Audit Report: The Department’s Management of the ENERGY STAR Program (PDF; 263 KB)
Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Inspector General

As evidenced by the commitment of $300 million in Recovery Act funds, the ENERGY STAR Program plays an important role in the U.S. efforts to reduce energy consumption. We initiated this audit to determine whether the Department had implemented the actions it announced in 2007 to strengthen the Program.

Results of Audit
The Department had not implemented planned improvements in the ENERGY STAR Program. Our audit revealed that officials had not:

• Developed a formal quality assurance program to help ensure that product specifications were adhered to;
• Effectively monitored the use of the ENERGY STAR label to ensure that only qualifying products were labeled as compliant; and,
• Formalized procedures for establishing and revising product specifications and for documenting decisions regarding those specifications.

In our judgment, the delay in the Department’s planned improvements in its management of the ENERGY STAR Program could reduce consumer confidence in the integrity of the ENERGY STAR label. Such loss of credibility could reduce energy savings, increase consumer risk, and diminish the value of the recent infusion of $300 million for ENERGY STAR rebates under the Recovery Act.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Consumer issues, Documents in the news, Energy, Government and politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.