Our pro-polluter president is out to kill Energy Star

The Trump administration’s proposal to massively cut the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget would extinguish the successful and extraordinarily popular Energy Star program. When American families and businesses shop for new appliances, they rely on this label to know that the product they’re considering will use less electricity or gas—saving them money on fuel bills and reducing climate-changing carbon pollution. Energy Star has also provided great benefit to manufacturers—hence the voluntary participation of more than 16,000 product makers and other companies. In 2015 alone, Americans purchased more than 300 million Energy Star–certified products and 82,000 new homes with the Energy Star seal. Since its inception 25 years ago, the program has saved families and businesses $430 billion on utility bills and reduced climate-changing pollution by 2.7 billion metric tons. Not a bad return for a program that costs taxpayers just around $50 million annually. It’s a mystery why the White House wants to kill this popular consumer-, business-, and environment-friendly program.