Another day, another grift. The EPA's Energy Star program has been, for consumers, a raging success. A label, right there on each of the displayed home appliances in a store, tells you flat-out how much electricity your latest purchase is going to use and what it's going to cost you; if you want a version that costs less, you can easily find a brand that's more energy-efficient and go from there. If the program didn't exist, such comparisons would be impossible.
So of course Team Trump wants to murder the thing. And of course there's a link to his own businesses involved here, because the program also includes voluntary scoring of commercial real estate buildings. Guess what?
Trump's properties tend to receive low Energy Star ratings. The most recent scores from 2015 reveal that 11 of his 15 skyscrapers in New York, Chicago and San Francisco are less energy efficient than most comparable buildings. On a scale of 1 to 100 for energy efficiency, Manhattan's old Mayfair Hotel, which Trump converted into condos, rated a 1.
But none of this could matter if the administration has its way. It has proposed cutting all funding to the Energy Star Program, run by the Environmental Protection Agency.
This will Help Donald Trump Personally because, as a real estate developer, getting poor scores on buildings can make investors and prospective tenants wary. You don't want to buy into a white elephant, after all (though honestly, if the building you're investing in has a giant TRUMP logo perched on top of it like a gaudy and gigantic pigeon, you may deserve what you get.) And while the program is mostly voluntary, some cities require scores to be reported—a trend that developers like Trump may not like.
Doesn't matter now, if Trump gets his way. Ratings? Gone. Consumer choice? Sod off!
Oh, and just to bring home that Trump has always been as big a liar as he is right now in this moment:
"I strongly believe in clean energy, in conserving energy, all of that --- more than anybody," Trump says on a fact sheet for a heating and power generation system at Trump Tower in White Plains, New York.
More than anybody.