Energy Conservation Program: Procedures, Interpretations, and Policies for Consideration of New or Revised Energy Conservation Standards and Test Procedures for Consumer Products and Certain Commercial/Industrial Equipment

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 430</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-STD-0001]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF72</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Procedures, Interpretations, and Policies for Consideration of New or Revised Energy Conservation Standards and Test Procedures for Consumer Products and Certain Commercial/Industrial Equipment</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Request for information. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> As part of its implementation of the Executive order, “Unleashing American Energy” (Jan. 20, 2025), the Department of Energy (DOE or the Department) is seeking comments and information from interested parties to assist DOE in identifying potential modifications to its procedures, interpretations, and policies for considering new or revised energy conservation standards and test procedures for consumer products and certain commercial and industrial equipment ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the “Process Rule”). DOE is initiating this effort through this request for information to ensure consistency with recently issued Executive Orders, while continuing to satisfy the Department's statutory obligations in the development of appliance and equipment standards under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA). Subsequently, DOE expects to expeditiously publish a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) that proposes potential changes to the Process Rule and that will also provide feedback on the public comment received in response to this document and seek additional information on other potential improvements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments and information are requested and will be accepted on or before June 2, 2025. </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-2025-BT-STD-0001. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0001 and/or regulatory information number (RIN) 1904-AF72, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: ProcessRule2025STD0001@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0001 and/or RIN 1904-AF72 in the subject line of the message. Submit electronic comments in WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, PDF, or ASCII file format, and avoid the use of special characters or any form of encryption. (2) <E T="03">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. If possible, please submit all items on a compact disc (CD), in which case it is not necessary to include printed copies. (3) <E T="03">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, <E T="03">see</E> section III (Public Participation) 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-2025-BT-STD-0001.</E> The docket web page contains instructions on how to access all documents, including public comments, in the docket. <E T="03">See</E> section III of this document for information on how to submit comments through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. Lucas Adin, 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) 287-5904. 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> 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> <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. Request for Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Consumer Choice in Appliances</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Reduction of Regulatory Burden</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Promoting Market Competition and Innovation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Analysis of Costs and Benefits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Public Comment and Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Prioritizing Accuracy in Environmental Analyses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Other Topics</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Satisfaction of Statutory Criteria</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Rulemaking Timelines</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Mandatory Application of Process Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> On January 20, 2025, the President issued Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy” (E.O. 14154). 90 FR 8353 (Jan. 29, 2025). That order stated the policy of the United States with regard to energy production and management. Among the stated elements of this policy are to safeguard the American people's freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances, including but not limited to lightbulbs, dishwashers, washing machines, gas stoves, water heaters, toilets, and shower heads, and to promote market competition and innovation within the manufacturing and appliance industries; to ensure that the global effects of a rule, regulation, or action shall, whenever evaluated, be reported separately from its domestic costs and benefits, in order to promote sound regulatory decision making and prioritize the interests of the American people; and to guarantee that all executive departments and agencies (agencies) provide opportunity for public comment and rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific analysis. The Executive order also specifies policies for prioritizing accuracy in environmental analyses, specifically instructing that for Federal regulatory processes, “all agencies shall adhere to only the relevant legislated requirements for environmental considerations, and any considerations beyond those requirements are eliminated.” The Executive order also provides instructions regarding consideration of greenhouse gas emissions and the “social cost of carbon.” To implement E.O. 14154, the Department, among other actions, is evaluating existing policy regarding its approach for consideration of new or amended energy conservation standards and test procedures for consumer products and certain commercial and industrial equipment. In this request for information (RFI), DOE is seeking public comment on how best to achieve the objectives enumerated in E.O. 14154, while continuing to satisfy the Department's statutorily-prescribed obligations. DOE intends to use the responses to this RFI in the development of revisions to the Procedures, Interpretations, and Policies for Consideration of New or Revised Energy Conservation Standards and Test Procedures for Consumer Products and Certain Commercial/Industrial Equipment, codified at 10 CFR part 430, subpart C, appendix A, (“appendix A” or the Process Rule), which DOE generally uses to prescribe energy conservation standards and test procedures for both consumer products and commercial equipment pursuant to the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, as amended (Pub. L. 94-163; 42 U.S.C. 6291, <E T="03">et seq.;</E> “EPCA”). In this RFI, DOE seeks comments and information on potential improvements to the Process Rule. In the paragraphs that follow, DOE lists issue areas on which it is particularly interested in receiving comments. DOE developed these issue areas based on E.O. 14154, feedback received in response to previous regulatory reform efforts related to the Process Rule, and on DOE's experience in promulgating standards using the procedures set out in the rule. In addition to the specific issues listed in this RFI, DOE welcomes comment on all other aspects of the Process Rule that interested parties believe could be improved or maintained. DOE intends to provide additional opportunities for public feedback if DOE moves forward to effectuate improvements to the Process Rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Authority</HD> Title III, parts B  of EPCA, Public Law 94-163 (42 U.S.C. 6291-6317, as codified), established the Energy Conservation Program for Consumer Products and Certain Industrial Equipment. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Under EPCA, DOE's energy conservation program for covered products consists essentially of four parts: (1) test ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 61k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━