Energy Conservation Program: Proposed Withdrawal of Determination of Fans and Blowers as Covered Equipment

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 431</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-DET-0020]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF90</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Proposed Withdrawal of Determination of Fans and Blowers as Covered Equipment</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy (DOE). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> DOE is proposing to withdraw its classification of certain fans and blowers as covered equipment under Part A-1 of Title III of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), as amended. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before July 15, 2025. <E T="03">Meeting:</E> DOE will hold a webinar on Thursday, May 29, 2025, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. See section III, “Public Participation,” for webinar registration information, participant instructions, and information about the capabilities available to webinar participants. </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-DET-0020. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-DET-0020, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: FansBlowers2025DET0020@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-DET-0020 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. 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. (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, see section III of this document. <E T="03">Docket:</E> The docket for this proposed rulemaking, which includes <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices, public meeting attendee lists and transcripts (if one is held), comments, and other supporting documents and 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- 2025-BT-DET-0020. </E> The docket web page contains instructions on how to access all documents, including public comments, in the docket, as well as a summary of the rulemaking. See section III, “Public Participation,” for further information on how to submit comments through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4), a summary of this proposed rule may be found at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> under the docket number. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. David Taggart, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the General Counsel, GC-1, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 586-5281. Email: <E T="03">DOEGeneralCounsel@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. General Discussion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Review Under Executive Order 12866</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Review Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Review Under the Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Review Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Review Under Executive Order 13132</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Review Under Executive Order 12988</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Review Under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Review Under the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1999</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Review Under Executive Order 12630</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Review Under the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 2001</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Review Under Executive Order 13211</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. Review Under the Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">M. Review Under Additional Executive Orders and Presidential Memoranda</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Participation in the Webinar</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Procedure for Submitting Prepared General Statements for Distribution</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Conduct of the Webinar</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Submission of Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> EPCA authorizes DOE to regulate the energy efficiency of a number of consumer products and certain industrial equipment. 42 U.S.C. 6291-6317. Title III, Part C. of EPCA, added by Public Law 95-619, title IV, section 441(a) (42 U.S.C. 6311-6317, as codified), established the Energy Conservation Program for Certain Industrial Equipment, which sets forth a variety of provisions designed to improve energy efficiency of certain commercial and industrial equipment (hereafter referred to as “covered equipment”). The purpose of Part A-1 is to improve the efficiency of electric motors and pumps and certain other industrial equipment in order to conserve the energy resources of the Nation. 42 U.S.C. 6312(a). EPCA specifies a list of equipment that constitutes covered equipment. EPCA also provides that “covered equipment” includes any other type of industrial equipment for which the Secretary of Energy (“Secretary”) determines inclusion is necessary to carry out the purpose of Part A-1. 42 U.S.C. 6311(1)(L); 42 U.S.C. 6312(b). On August 19, 2021, DOE made a final determination to classify fans and blowers as “covered equipment.” 86 FR 46579. DOE is proposing to rescind that determination and seeks comments on any aspect of that proposal. DOE has tentatively determined that coverage of fans and blowers is unnecessary to carry out the purposes of Part A-1. For the reasons many commentators raised in the initial determination, DOE has tentatively changed its position, and no longer believes that classification of fans and blowers as covered equipment will conserve energy to any degree that is necessary “in order to conserve the energy resources of the Nation.” <E T="03">See</E> 42 U.S.C. 6312(a). Additionally, and independently, DOE is proposing a policy to classify products as industrial equipment only if energy conservation standards will generate a significant impact on the energy resources of the nation, without compromising the performance of the products. DOE has tentatively determined that the classification of fans and blowers does not meet that standard. DOE is seeking comment on this proposal, including the previous classifications consistent with statutory authority and the U.S. Constitution, its costs and benefits, and its impact on small businesses and innovation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Review Under Executive Orders 12866</HD> Executive Order (“E.O.”) 12866, “Regulatory Planning and Review,” requires agencies, to the extent permitted by law, to (1) propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify its costs; (2) tailor regulations to impose the least burden on society, consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives, taking into account, among other things, and to the extent practicable, the costs of cumulative regulations; (3) select, in choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, those approaches that maximize net benefits; (4) to the extent feasible, specify performance objectives, rather than specifying the behavior or manner of compliance that regulated entities must adopt; and (5) identify and assess available alternatives to direct regulation, including providing economic incentives to encourage the desired behavior, such as user fees or marketable permits, or providing information upon which choices can be made by the public. For the reasons stated in the preamble, this proposed regulatory action is consistent with these principles. Section 6(a) of E.O. 12866 also requires agencies to submit “significant regulatory actions” to OIRA for review. OIRA has determined that this proposed regulatory action does not constitute a “significant regulatory action” under section 3(f) of E.O. 12866. Accordingly, this proposed recission was not submitted to OIRA for review under E.O. 12866. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Review Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) requires prepa ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 34k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━