Energy Conservation Program: Commercial Warm Air Furnaces; Final Determination

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 431</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2024-BT-DET-0012]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AE57</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Commercial Warm Air Furnaces; Final Determination</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final determination. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> On June 2, 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE” or the “Department”) published a test procedure final rule which established test procedures for commercial warm air furnaces (“CWAFs”). On August 1, 2023, the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (“AHRI”) filed a petition for review of the final rule in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In a February 6, 2024, order, the Fourth Circuit granted a voluntary remand of the final rule to the Department of Energy (“DOE”) to determine whether establishment of the test procedure for the thermal efficiency two (“TE2”) metric is supported by the specific provisions applicable to CWAFs under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (“EPCA”). More specifically, DOE agreed in this voluntary remand to not enforce the TE2 test procedure unless and until the Department determines that the TE2 test procedure is consistent with the amended industry test procedure, or determines, supported by clear and convincing evidence, that the amended industry test procedure fails to satisfy the statutory requirements. This document provides DOE's determination that the amended industry test procedure fails to satisfy EPCA's statutory requirements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The effective date of July 3, 2023, for the TE2 test procedure is confirmed. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> 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, 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-2024-BT-DET-0012.</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 review 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> Ms. Julia Hegarty, 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: (240) 597-6737. 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: <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. Energy Conservation Standards Rulemaking Process Under EPCA</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Discussion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Appendix B Test Procedure for TE2</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Comment Period Length</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Application of the ASHRAE Trigger Provision in 42 U.S.C. 6314(a)(4)(B)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Conclusion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Authority</HD> The Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Public Law 94-163, as amended (“EPCA”), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> authorizes DOE to regulate the energy efficiency of a number of consumer products and certain industrial equipment. (42 U.S.C. 6291-6317, as codified) Title III, Part C of EPCA, added by Public Law 95-619, title IV, sec. 441(a), established the Energy Conservation Program for Certain Industrial Equipment, which sets forth a variety of provisions designed to improve energy efficiency. This equipment includes CWAFs, the subject of this document. (42 U.S.C. 6311(1)(J)). <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 energy conservation program under EPCA consists essentially of four parts: (1) testing, (2) labeling, (3) Federal energy conservation standards, and (4) certification and enforcement procedures. Relevant provisions of EPCA include definitions (42 U.S.C. 6311), test procedures (42 U.S.C. 6314), labeling provisions (42 U.S.C. 6315), energy conservation standards (42 U.S.C. 6313), and the authority to require information and reports from manufacturers (42 U.S.C. 6316; 42 U.S.C. 6296). The Federal testing requirements consist of test procedures that manufacturers of covered equipment must use as the basis for: (1) certifying to DOE that their equipment complies with the applicable energy conservation standards adopted pursuant to EPCA (42 U.S.C. 6316(b); 42 U.S.C. 6296), and (2) making other representations about the efficiency of that equipment (42 U.S.C. 6314(d)). Similarly, DOE uses these test procedures to determine whether the equipment complies with relevant standards promulgated under EPCA. DOE's test procedures for CWAFs are currently prescribed at subpart D of part 431 of title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (“CFR”). Federal energy efficiency requirements for covered equipment established under EPCA generally supersede state laws and regulations concerning energy conservation testing, labeling, and standards. (42 U.S.C. 6316(a) and 42 U.S.C. 6316(b); 42 U.S.C. 6297) DOE may, however, grant waivers of Federal preemption for particular state laws or regulations, in accordance with the procedures and other provisions of EPCA. (42 U.S.C. 6316(b)(2)(D)). Under 42 U.S.C. 6314, EPCA sets forth the criteria and procedures DOE must follow when prescribing or amending test procedures for covered equipment. EPCA requires that any test procedures prescribed or amended under this section must be reasonably designed to produce test results that reflect energy efficiency, energy use, or estimated annual operating cost of a given type of covered equipment during a representative average use cycle (as determined by DOE) and requires that test procedures not be unduly burdensome to conduct. (42 U.S.C. 6314(a)(2)). EPCA generally requires that, at least once every seven years, DOE evaluate test procedures for each type of covered equipment, including CWAFs, to determine whether amended test procedures would more accurately or fully comply with the requirements for the test procedures to not be unduly burdensome to conduct and be reasonably designed to produce test results that reflect energy efficiency, energy use, and estimated operating costs during a representative average use cycle. (42 U.S.C. 6314(a)(1)-(3)) DOE refers to these provisions as the “lookback” provisions and rulemakings conducted under these provisions as “lookback” rulemakings. Specific to certain commercial equipment, including CWAFs, EPCA required that the initial test procedures for this equipment be those generally accepted industry testing procedures or rating procedures developed or recognized by AHRI or ASHRAE, as referenced in ASHRAE Standard 90.1, “Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings” (“ASHRAE Standard 90.1”), that were in effect on June 30, 1992. (42 U.S.C. 6314(a)(4)(A)) Further, if such an industry test procedure is amended, DOE must update its test procedure to be consistent with the amended industry test procedure unless DOE determines, by rule published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> and supported by clear and convincing evidence, that the amended test procedure would not meet the requirements in 42 U.S.C. 6314(a)(2) and (3), in which case DOE may establish an amended test procedure that does satisfy those statutory provisions. (42 U.S.C. 6314(a)(4)(B) and (C)) DOE refers to these provisions as the “ASHRAE trigger” provisions and rulemakings conducted under these provisions as “ASHRAE trigger” rulemakings. Whether pursuant to the lookback provision or the ASHRAE trigger provision, if DOE determines that a test procedure amendment is warranted, EPCA requires that the Department publish proposed test procedures in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> and afford interested persons an opportunity (of not less than 45 days duration) to present oral and written data, views, and arguments on the proposed test procedures. (42 U.S.C. 6314(b)). <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Energy Conservation Standards Rulemaking Process Under EPCA</HD> The purpose of energy conservation standards issued under EPCA is to reduce energy use by improving the energy efficiency of covered products and equipment. ( <E T="03">See</E> 42 U.S.C. 6312(a)). The first step in establishing new or amended energy conservation standards for any covered product or equipment is to determine what energy use by a covered product or equipment will be within the scope of the energy conservation standard, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> what is the representative average use cycle for the covered product or equipment. For example, prior to the Energy Independ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 48k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━