Court Denies LG Motion To Block Removing Energy Star Frig Labels

LG Electronics, fighting the U.S. Department of Energy in federal court over issues around the Energy Star energy efficiency program and some of its refrigerators, has lost said battle in rather quick fashion. The well known consumer electronics manufacturer, based upon a federal court action and reported in the New York Times, must now remove Energy Star labeling from the frigs in question.

The whole issue here stems from the endpoint of an agreement the DOE and LG originally had in which the latter would address some energy efficiency issues the former pointed out disqualified the frigs from Energy Star labeling. The DOE later on felt  LG’s attempts to meet its request failed, so it told LG to take off said labels. LG was unhappy with the way it felt the DOE was handling the whole Energy Star process with it, so it filed a motion in federal court to block the label removing. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday denied this motion [27page PDF here], so now it must remove the labeling.

The DOE, for its part, now feels vindicated, saying the court “affirmed our efforts to protect consumers and the environment through robust enforcement of our energy efficiency regulations.” LG, trying to not look like the sore loser, stated that it will “temporarily” remove the labeling from the 40,000 or so impacted models while moving forward to introduce new Energy Star rated versions which work with “the new guidance the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued Dec. 18, 2009.” It also “looks forward to working with the DOE to enhance the Energy Star program.”