Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Conventional Cooking Products

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 430</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2014-BT-STD-0005]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF57</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Conventional Cooking Products</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule; confirmation of effective and compliance dates. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) published a direct final rule to establish new and amended energy conservation standards for consumer conventional cooking products in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 14, 2024. DOE has determined that the comments received in response to the direct final rule do not provide a reasonable basis for withdrawing the direct final rule. Therefore, DOE provides this document confirming the effective and compliance dates of those standards. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The effective date of June 13, 2024, for the direct final rule published on February 14, 2024 (89 FR 11434) is confirmed. Compliance with the standards established in the direct final rule will be required on January 31, 2028. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The docket for this rulemaking, which includes <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices, public meeting attendee lists and transcripts, comments, and other supporting documents/materials, is available for review at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> All documents in the docket are listed in the <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> index. However, not all documents listed in the index may be publicly available, such as information that is exempt from public disclosure. The docket web page can be found at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov/docket/EERE-2014-BT-STD-0005.</E> The docket web page contains instructions on how to access all documents, including public comments, in the docket. For further information on how to submit a comment or review other public comments and the docket, contact the Appliance and Equipment Standards Program staff at (202) 287-1445 or by email: <E T="03">ApplianceStandardsQuestions@ee.doe.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Dr. Carl Shapiro, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Building Technologies Office, EE-5B, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 287-5649. Email: <E T="03">ApplianceStandardsQuestions@ee.doe.gov.</E> Mr. Pete Cochran, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the General Counsel, GC-33, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 586-4798. Email: Peter <E T="03">.Cochran@hq.doe.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Consumer Conventional Cooking Products Direct Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Comments on the Direct Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. General Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Anti-Backsliding</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Economic Justification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Significant Conservation of Energy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Unavailability of Performance Characteristics</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Stakeholder Representation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Responses to Previous Stakeholder Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Formal Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Other Legal Concerns</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Impact of Any Lessening of Competition</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Conclusion</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Authority</HD> The Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Public Law 94-163, as amended (“EPCA”), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> authorizes DOE to issue a direct final rule establishing an energy conservation standard for a product on receipt of a statement submitted jointly by interested persons that are fairly representative of relevant points of view (including representatives of manufacturers of covered products, States, and efficiency advocates), as determined by the Secretary of Energy (“Secretary”), that contains recommendations with respect to an energy or water conservation standard that are in accordance with the provisions of 42 U.S.C. 6295(o) or 42 U.S.C. 6313(a)(6)(B), as applicable. (42 U.S.C. 6295(p)(4)) <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  All references to EPCA in this document refer to the statute as amended through the Energy Act of 2020, Public Law 116-260 (Dec. 27, 2020), which reflect the last statutory amendments that impact Parts A and A-1 of EPCA. </FTNT> The direct final rule must be published simultaneously with a notice of proposed rulemaking (“NOPR”) that proposes an energy or water conservation standard that is identical to the standard established in the direct final rule, and DOE must provide a public comment period of at least 110 days on this proposal. (42 U.S.C. 6295(p)(4)(A)-(B)) Not later than 120 days after issuance of the direct final rule, DOE shall withdraw the direct final rule if: (1) DOE receives one or more adverse public comments relating to the direct final rule or any alternative joint recommendation; and (2) based on the rulemaking record relating to the direct final rule, DOE determines that such adverse public comments or alternative joint recommendation may provide a reasonable basis for withdrawing the direct final rule. (42 U.S.C. 6295(p)(4)(C)) If DOE makes such a determination, DOE must proceed with the NOPR published simultaneously with the direct final rule and publish in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> the reasons why the direct final rule was withdrawn. ( <E T="03">Id.</E> ) After review of comments received, DOE has determined that it did receive adverse comments on the direct final rule. However, based on the rulemaking record, the comments did not provide a reasonable basis for withdrawing the direct final rule under the provisions in 42 U.S.C. 6295(p)(4)(C). As such, DOE did not withdraw this direct final rule and the DFR remains effective. Although not required under EPCA, where DOE does not withdraw a direct final rule, DOE typically publishes a summary of the comments received during the 110-day comment period and its responses to those comments. This document contains such a summary, as well as DOE's responses to the comments. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Consumer Conventional Cooking Products Direct Final Rule</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Background</HD> The National Appliance Energy Conservation Act of 1987 (“NAECA”), Public Law 100-12, amended EPCA to establish prescriptive standards for gas cooking products, requiring gas ranges and ovens with an electrical supply cord that are manufactured on or after January 1, 1990, not to be equipped with a constant burning pilot light. (42 U.S.C. 6295(h)(1)) NAECA also directed DOE to conduct two cycles of rulemakings to determine if more stringent or additional standards were justified for kitchen ranges and ovens. (42 U.S.C. 6295(h)(2)) DOE undertook the first cycle of these rulemakings and published a final rule on September 8, 1998 (“September 1998 Final Rule”), which found that no standards were justified for conventional electric cooking products at that time. 63 FR 48038. In addition, partially due to the difficulty of conclusively demonstrating at that time that elimination of standing pilot lights for gas cooking products without an electrical supply cord was economically justified, DOE did not include amended standards for conventional gas cooking products in the September 1998 Final Rule. 63 FR 48038, 48039-48040. For the second cycle of rulemakings, DOE published a final rule on April 8, 2009 (“April 2009 Final Rule”) amending the energy conservation standards for consumer conventional cooking products to prohibit constant burning pilot lights for all gas cooking products ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> gas cooking products with or without an electrical supply cord) manufactured on or after April 9, 2012. 74 FR 16040, 16085. The prescriptive standards established by the April 2009 Final Rule remain applicable currently. On August 22, 2022, DOE published a final rule establishing a test procedure for conventional cooking tops, at 10 CFR part 430, subpart B, appendix I1, “Uniform Test Method for the Measuring the Energy Consumption of Conventional Cooking Products.” On February 1, 2023, DOE published a supplementary NOPR (“February 2023 SNOPR”) proposing to establish new and amended standards for consumer conventional cooking products, consisting of design requirements for conventional ovens and a maximum integrated annual energy consumer (“IAEC”) levels for electric and gas cooking tops, as measured according to the newly established appendix I1 test procedure and expressed in kilowatt-hours (“kWh”) per year for electric cooking tops and kilo-British thermal units (“kBtu”) per year for gas cooking tops. 88 FR 6818. On February 28, 2023, DOE published a notification of data availability (“NODA”) providing additional information to clarify the February 2023 SNOPR analysis for gas cooking tops. 88 FR 12603. On August 2, 2023, DOE published a second NODA updating its analysis for conventional gas cooking tops based on the stakeholder data it received in response to the February 2023 SNOPR. 88 FR 50810. On September 25, 2023, DOE received a joint statement (“Joint Agreement”) recommending standards for consumer conventional cooking products that was submitted by groups representing manufacturers, energy and environmental advocates, consumer groups, and a utility. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> In addition to the recommended standards for consumer conventional cooking products, the Joint Agreement also included separate recomme ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 102k characters. 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