Industry Insight: Chasing a Shooting Energy Star

Congress passed the 2005 Energy Policy Act to save more than 300,000 barrels of oil a year -- a laudable goal.

But in implementing the law, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is about to make life difficult for government agencies and their private sector partners when it comes to computer hardware, peripherals and other electronic devices. Energy efficiency is important; but legislation must balance that goal with the economic impact on the government, its vendors and ultimately the taxpayer.

Among its many provisions, the Act codified a long-standing requirement that federal departments and agencies buy Energy Star-compliant electronic devices, with two important exceptions: Agencies can seek an exemption from the requirement when an Energy Star device is not the most cost-effective choice over the product's entire lifecycle or when no Energy Star device is available in that specific category.

Unfortunately, the EPA is poised to crack down on those exceptions. In a rule recently proposed, the Agency claimed to be pretty confident that Energy Star devices would almost always be the most cost-effective choice. Once you account for energy savings, agencies representatives argued, any instance in which a non-Energy Star device is not the best choice should be "rare."

That may be true today, but a new reality is less than two months away. The EPA is raising the bar by increasing the level of efficiency a product must obtain in order to earn the Energy Star label. Many IT products that are compliant now will not be compliant next month. So, the need for the exemption probably won't be so rare after all. Discouraged from seeking the exception, officials may be inclined to go with more expensive Energy Star devices " even if it ultimately costs more taxpayer dollars to do so and doesn't result in the most appropriate solution to meet the given IT requirements.

There are other concerns as well. The proposed rule could also disproportionately harm small manufacturers that can't afford the cost associated with maintaining Energy Star Compliance. That, in turn, will leave their partners less competitive for grabbing government business. The more agencies that decline to pursue an exemption, the fewer customers these companies will have.

Further impacting industry, the EPA wants to shift responsibility for compliance with the federal mandate from the agencies to the suppliers. Thus the burden to ensure that an item is Energy Star compliant would rest with the vendor or reseller. Adding weight to the load is the fact that the new standards will require Energy Star devices to be compliant upon manufacture, rather than development. A device developed last year as compliant with the current standards could be manufactured next month and fail to meet the new standards.

These provisions were not envisioned or included in the original Executive Order or the 2005 legislation. ITAA believes that the Agency should stick to the law, and not increase costs for agencies, contractors, and ultimately, taxpayers. Having submitted opposing comments, we hope to see more common sense when the final rule is issued.