Federal investigators who submitted phony products, such as a gas-powered alarm clock, to the government's energy-efficiency certification program found it easy to obtain approval. They say the program is "vulnerable to fraud and abuse."

Investigators with the Government Accountability Office said they obtained Energy Star approval for 15 of 20 fictitious products they submitted for certification with fake energy-savings claims. Two were rejected, and three did not receive a response. Two of the products even received purchase requests from real companies because four bogus firms, developed for the investigation, were listed as program partners.

Among the phony products that obtained Energy Star certification was a "room air cleaner" that, in a picture prominently displayed on the Web site of a bogus company, showed an electric space heater with a feather duster and strips of flypaper attached to it.

"Certification controls were ineffective primarily because Energy Star does not verify energy-savings data reported by manufacturers," investigators said in a GAO report released yesterday. Work for the investigation, undertaken at the request of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, started in June and did not involve products that already are certified.

Energy Star was designed to promote products that are up to 25 percent more energy-efficient than minimum federal standards. The program claims to have helped American families save nearly $17 billion on their utility bills in 2009 and "enough energy to avoid greenhouse-gas emissions equivalent to those from 30 million cars."

The voluntary labeling program, started in response to the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 and the Energy Policy Act of 1992, is heavily promoted through tax credits and rebates. In some cases, federal agencies can buy only Energy Star-certified products.

In a statement, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy, which jointly manage the program, vowed to improve certifying standards, saying they have "started an enhanced testing program and have already taken enforcement actions against companies that have violated the rules."

They were notified of the study findings last month.

"The results of the GAO's investigation are astounding and raise doubts about the validity of the Energy Star rating," Collins said. "It also causes concern that companies that do produce truly energy-efficient products could be out-priced by unscrupulous firms."

Source: McClatchy Newspapers