You’ll Start Spiralling When You Learn What the Trump Administration Just Did

Bye Bye, Savings

The Trump administration is so committed to environmental deregulation that it's ending a program that has saved Americans more than half a trillion dollars.

According to officials briefed on the matter who spoke to the Washington Post, the Environmental Protection Agency — or what's left of it, anyway — is slated to end the Energy Star program, which has certified electric efficiency on appliances across the country and resulted in more than $500 billion in utility bill savings since 1992.

The Energy Star closure was announced during an all-hands meeting of the EPA's Office of Atmospheric Protection, which also learned at the same time that it would be dissolved.

In a statement to CNN, an agency spokesperson did not lay out a timeline for the closure or say when Americans could expect to stop seeing Energy Star certification stickers on appliances.

While the EPA itself has been tight-lipped about the changes, Republican senator Susan Collins of Maine said she was "baffled" by the move to close the program.

"I know that my constituents like knowing what the energy usage is of a particular appliance," she told CNN, "so that they can factor that into their buying decisions."

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As WaPo notes, widespread adoption of Energy Star-certified appliances has prevented an estimated four billion metric tons of greenhouse gases from leaking into our atmosphere, the equivalent of taking nearly 950 million cars off the roads for a year.

That focus on energy efficiency could well be why Trump, a longtime Energy Star hater who floated closing the program during his first presidency, wants to kibosh it now.

Trump has also long opposed appliance efficiency standards because, according to him, they don't provide enough water to wash his "perfect" and "beautiful" hair. Last month, he signed an executive order lifting restrictions on "weak and worthless" showerheads to that end.

Now that Energy Star's future is unknown, the public is left wondering — if this administration will kill even George HW. Bush-era conservation programs, how much further will it go?

More on Trump's energy haterade: Trump Just Set a Tariff on Solar Panels So High That Your Eyebrows May Raise Involuntarily

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