Can’t Trust the Danged Gubberment!

Two disturbing news items recently crossed my desk. The first reports that LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification — the gold standard for green buildings — has been given to buildings that are not in fact energy efficient.

A building can be designed on paper to be LEED-certified, but the way it’s actually constructed and operated can strip from it any sort of genuine environmental credibility. Some experts propose giving LEED certification only after a building has been occupied for some years, as a way of proving its energy efficiency.

In other bad news, an internal audit by the U.S. Department of Energy discovered that the coveted Energy Star label has been bestowed upon appliances that aren’t really energy efficient.

The Energy Star program is in the spotlight now because the Obama administration has earmarked $300 million in rebates to consumers who buy Energy Star products.

What the hell is going on here? The LEED program has come under fire for years by architects and contractors as a rather cumbersome process bedeviled by bureaucratic ineptitude. And kudos to the Energy Department for discovering this reality gap on their own.

But certifications like these need to be trustworthy, or consumers will lose faith in the programs, the government, and soon the whole fabric of Western civilization will unravel. Or something like that.

Let’s tighten up our game, folks, or we’ll all lose the race to true energy independence.