Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Dishwashers, Residential Clothes Washers, and Consumer Clothes Dryers

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 430</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2024-BT-STD-0002]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF69</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Dishwashers, Residential Clothes Washers, and Consumer Clothes Dryers</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notification of proposed confirmation of withdrawal and request for comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In light of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granting a petition for review of a final rule published by the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) on January 19, 2022, and remanding the matter to DOE for further proceedings, DOE issued a request for information on whether “short-cycle” product classes for dishwashers, residential clothes washers, and consumer clothes dryers are warranted under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. In this document, DOE considers the factors outlined by the Fifth Circuit and proposes to confirm the elimination of “short-cycle” product classes in the January 19, 2022, final rule. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> DOE will accept comments, data, and information regarding this proposal no later than December 9, 2024. <E T="03">See</E> section IV, “Public Participation,” for details. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested persons are encouraged to submit comments using the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> under docket number EERE-2024-BT-STD-0002. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2024-BT-STD-0002, by any of the following methods: <E T="03">(1) Email: ShortCycle2024STD0002@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2024-BT-STD-0002 in the subject line of the message. <E T="03">(2) Postal Mail:</E> Appliance and Equipment Standards Program, U.S. Department of Energy, Building Technologies Office, Mailstop EE-5B, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC, 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 287-1445. If possible, please submit all items on a compact disc (“CD”), in which case it is not necessary to include printed copies. <E T="03">(3) Hand Delivery/Courier:</E> Appliance and Equipment Standards Program, U.S. Department of Energy, Building Technologies Office, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC, 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 287-1445. If possible, please submit all items on a CD, in which case it is not necessary to include printed copies. No telefacsimiles (“faxes”) will be accepted. For detailed instructions on submitting comments and additional information on this process, see section IV of this document. <E T="03">Docket:</E> The docket for this activity, which includes <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices, 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, some documents listed in the index, such as those containing information that is exempt from public disclosure, may not be publicly available. The docket web page can be found at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov/docket/EERE-2024-BT-STD-0002.</E> The docket web page contains instructions on how to access all documents, including public comments, in the docket. See section IV for information on how to submit comments through <E T="03">www.regulations.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: (240) 961-1189. Email: <E T="03">Peter.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. Introduction</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Discussion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Dishwashers</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Cycle Time as a Performance-Related Feature</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Justification of Different Standards for Dishwashers With a Short-Cycle Feature</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Response to Other Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Residential Clothes Washers</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Cycle Time as a Performance-Related Feature</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Justification of Different Standards for Residential Clothes Washers With a Short-Cycle Feature</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Response to Other Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Consumer Clothes Dryers</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Cycle Time as a Performance-Related Feature</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Justification of Different Standards for Consumer Clothes Dryers With a Short-Cycle Feature</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Response to Other Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Other Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Process</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Legal</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Impacts on Average Lifetime</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Other Topics Addressed by the Fifth Circuit</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Water Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Test Procedure Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Preservation of Product Utility</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Conclusion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Review Under Executive Order 12866</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> The following sections briefly discuss the statutory authority underlying this proposed confirmation of withdrawal, as well as some of the historical background relevant to dishwashers, residential clothes washers (“RCWs”), and consumer clothes dryers. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Authority</HD> The U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) must follow specific statutory criteria under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Public Law 94-163, <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> as amended, (“EPCA”) for prescribing new or amended standards for covered products, including dishwashers, RCWs, and consumer clothes dryers. Any new or amended standard for a covered product must be designed to achieve the maximum improvement in energy efficiency that the Secretary of Energy (“Secretary”) determines is technologically feasible and economically justified. (42 U.S.C. 6295(o)(2)(A)) Furthermore, DOE may not adopt any standard that would not result in the significant conservation of energy. (42 U.S.C. 6295(o)(3)(B)) <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> Moreover, DOE may not prescribe a standard if DOE determines by rule that the establishment of such standard will not result in significant conservation of energy (or, for certain products, water), or is not technologically feasible or economically justified. (42 U.S.C. 6295(o)(3)(B)) In deciding whether a proposed standard is economically justified, DOE must determine whether the benefits of the standard exceeds its burdens. (42 U.S.C. 6295(o)(2)(B)(i)) DOE must make this determination after receiving comments on the proposed standard, and by considering, to the greatest extent practicable, the following seven statutory factors: (1) The economic impact of the standard on manufacturers and consumers of the products subject to the standard; (2) The savings in operating costs throughout the estimated average life of the covered products in the type (or class) compared to any increase in the price, initial charges, or maintenance expenses for the covered products that are likely to result from the standard; (3) The total projected amount of energy (or as applicable, water) savings likely to result directly from the standard; (4) Any lessening of the utility or the performance of the covered products likely to result from the standard; (5) The impact of any lessening of competition, as determined in writing by the Attorney General, that is likely to result from the standard; (6) The need for national energy and water conservation; and (7) Other factors the Secretary considers relevant. (42 U.S.C. 6295(o)(2)(B)(i)(I)-(VII)) EPCA, as codified, also contains what is known as an “anti-backsliding” provision, which prevents the Secretary from prescribing any amended standard that either increases the maximum allowable energy use or decreases the minimum required energy efficiency of a covered product. (42 U.S.C. 6295(o)(1)) Also, the Secretary may not prescribe an amended or new standard if interested persons have established by a preponderance of the evidence that the standard is likely to result in the unavailability in the United States in any covered product type (or class) of performance characteristics (including reliability), features, sizes, capacities, and volumes that are substantially the same as those generally available in the United States. (42 U.S.C. 6295(o)(4)) Additionally, EPCA specifies requirements when promulgating an energy conservation standard for a covered product that has two or more subcategories. A rule prescribing an energy conservation standard for a type (or class) of product must specify a different standard level for a type or class of products that has the same function o ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 147k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━