GREAT FALLS — The Associated Press reports that the Environmental Protection Agency is targeting Energy Star in cuts, but will that affect appliance sales?

Bruce Moore has been in the appliance business for over a decade and knows a thing or two about Energy Star.

Moore, the sales manager at Eklund’s Appliance and Mattress in Great Falls, said, “Energy Star is basically a rating of efficiency and cost of operations for major appliances”

According to their website, ENERGY STAR has saved consumers over $500 billion in energy costs since its creation in 1992, but to the average consumer, it’s a much smaller factor.

Moore said, “On average, you're [saving] about $10 a year in a cost of operations on, like, say, a refrigerator.”

Now, the program is in jeopardy, as the EPA is looking to eliminate or reorganize their Energy Star offices.

However, Moore doesn’t expect it to affect sales.

Moore said, “It's not always this huge emotional thing for the customer. It is when you're dealing with government bids and businesses like that that have certain standards to live up to.”

Moore is not alone in this belief. Eklund’s warehouse manager Dylan Burger agrees that, while about half the products do have the energy star designation, it isn’t often brought up.

Burger said, “to be honest, nobody's ever even really asked, when they are purchasing them.”

He says that sales always increase at this time of year and does not expect the ENERGY STAR cuts to change that.

Burger said, “We're pretty slow through the winter months, but we pick up every summer…and especially this time of the year, it's starting to really pick up.”

For Eklund’s, it is business as usual.

Moore said, “I don't believe it'll affect our business much if at all.”