Trump Hiking American Energy Bills by $40 Billion a Year

Killing Energy Star will save American taxpayers $32 million a year, on top of future savings from not having civilization

One of the most popular, efficient, and money-saving government programs in existence reportedly is being killed by Pres. Donald Trump because it’s popular, efficient, and money-saving.

CNN reports that the Environmental [sic] Protection [sic] Agency (EPA) is going to shut down the Energy Star program that helps consumers identify products that use less energy than competing products, helping consumers save on their electric bills. Keeping the program running costs taxpayers $32 million every year and saves taxpayers $40 billion every year.

Ending Energy Star will therefore save the government $32 million a year, at the low, low cost to taxpayers of just $39.97 billion a year. Typically, such stupidity would suggest the short-sighted cut was the work of the Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but in this case, it’s actually something Trump sought to do in his first term.

Which means the man literally has spent almost a decade dreaming of killing a program that lets companies signal to customers that they can save some money. And you thought your elderly male relatives were depressed.

Energy Star is just part of the coming cuts, including the elimination of two EPA programs focused on climate and energy, CNN reported.

The terminated climate programs include reporting of greenhouse-gas emissions and the agency’s private partnerships on emissions of methane, a wildly powerful accelerant of climate change produced by livestock, oil and gas drilling, and landfills. Killing the programs will save taxpayers millions of dollars at the low, low cost of habitable Earth.

The Energy Star program was started in 1992 under Pres. George H.W. Bush, who was a Republican at the time and would in today’s political environment be considered a Communist who runs a head shop and publishes NAMBLA samizdat. The program has had bipartisan support for decades and so obviously must die.

Paula Glover, president of the nonprofit group Alliance to Save Energy, told CNN that killing Energy Star would also make it harder for Trump to fulfill his pledge to lower household energy bills. “Eliminating the Energy Star program would directly contradict this administration’s promise to reduce household energy costs,” said Glover, mistakenly assuming that Trump’s pledges are made for fulfilling.

An EPA spokesperson told CNN that “organizational improvements … will directly benefit the American people and better advance the agency’s core mission, while Powering the Great American Comeback.” The statement was notable for being bureaucratic bullshit requiring massive energy consumption to compute even a theory about how it related to Energy Star.

It’s not just consumers who will suffer. Companies that invested in making low-energy-consumption products will now see Trump flush their investments down a high-flow toilet. Builders and other companies will no longer be able to rely on Energy Star guidance to keep private-sector utility bills low.

Oh, and also using more carbon-generated energy will shorten the lifespan of Earth as a Class M planet¹.

Last month, more than 1,000 companies, cities, and organizations signed a letter asking the EPA not to kill Energy Star. The program has saved considerably energy even since Trump took over simply by not doing anything worth issuing a single press release.

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TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

1. Star Trek terminology for sustaining life.