by Nancy Reece Jones, Stevensville
Every day brings news of another Executive Order or pending action that defies credulity and common sense. Here’s the latest: eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program. Regardless of your perspective on the genesis of climate change—and yes, the climate is most certainly changing—you pay energy bills so it’s in your best interest to keep those as low as possible. That’s what Energy Star has enabled all of us to do for the past three decades. It’s been one of America’s most popular government programs. Not inconsequentially, it’s shaved about $500 billion off our utility bills AND prevented 6 billion metric tons of emissions from entering our atmosphere (and yes, these emissions do negatively affect our climate).
So why is this undisputed winner of a program, heralded across the political aisle as well as by companies and trade associations, facing erasure? Because this move is part of “organizational improvements” to “better advance the agency’s core mission while Powering the Great American Comeback.” Please, tell me how this makes any sense at all?! Energy efficiency is NOT a conspiracy of the left: it’s an intelligent approach to the wise use of our natural resources. Which makes pure and simple economic sense.