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Energy Star Program Certifies 15 Out of 20 Bogus Products
longacre writes "A Gasoline-Powered Alarm Clock was among 15 bogus products granted the coveted Energy Star seal of approval by the US Environmental Protection Agency during a secret evaluation conducted by the Government Accountability Office. In addition, four fictional manufacturers run by fake people and marketed with crummy websites — Cool Rapport (HVAC equipment), Futurizon Solar Innovations (lighting), Spartan Digital Electronics, and Tropical Thunder Appliances — were granted Energy Star partnerships. The root of the problem: Manufacturers need only submit photos and not actual examples of their products, and they submit their own efficiency ratings, which are not independently verified by the EPA."
Pretty much every company bigger than 10-20 employees has some sort of auditing system in place. Auditing is a good practice, and catches things such as this -- the only difference with the government is that audits are made public.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
This kind of comments make me want to return to Europe. I've been living in US for a couple of years now, I have a 6 figure salary and you know what: I hate paying so little in taxes. Because you get what you pay for. In USA you have small government, no taxes and hence everyone gets routinely screwed up by private sector: I have never paid so much in telecommunications, so much in healthcare costs for the shittiest service ever and I just punctured tire on my audi last week because of a massive pothole on a *freeway*. But as long as you get screwed by private sector everyone is happy. And then because one gov service is bad, everybody starts screaming big government is the root of all evil. For fuck sake, have you people ever tried trains in germany or healthcare in UK? USA could have been such a good country, food can be so amazing in NY and multiculturalism beats everybody else, but if people were just a little bit more sensible brained....
I suspect one of three things(or conceivably some combination):
Regulatory capture: Regulatory entities frequently(out of a mixture of lobbying and the human social processes that come with working together), frequently start to identify with the entities they regulate. It's like Stockholm Syndrome for bureaucracies. Either because you fear the lobbying clout of people upset with your decisions, or because you really don't want to be "not a team player", you start getting really softball regulation.
Bad incentive structure: Defining good metrics for productivity is hard. Defining bad ones is easy. It would be totally believable that, either by design or in practice, the guy who approves 10 products in a day gets more brownie points than the guy who denies 10, or carefully researches 5.
Intentional brokenness: A common(and quite sensible) defensive mechanism used by entities or industries that fear they will face conditions harmful to their interests(either regulation, consumer backlash, or both) is to pre-emptively "show their cooperation" by collaborating with their friends in legislature, or in "objective 3rd party" organizations produced for the purpose, to establish carefully broken softball standards that strongly resemble whatever reform they feared; but have little or none of the punch.
Bernie Madoff stole 50 billion dollars right under the SEC and FINRA's noses. Unlike private agencies like the UL that face the threat of extinction if they ruin their brand, government agencies routinely screw up, screw the people they're supposed to protect and get more money for their failures.
That's because the free market Republicans and Libertarians want to make sure the government can't do anything; because the market is self regulating.
When the head of the SEC doesn't believe in regulation, you can be certain that very little will be regulated.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.