Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Commercial Prerinse Spray Valves

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 431</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-STD-0008]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF78</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Commercial Prerinse Spray Valves</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy (DOE). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> DOE is proposing to rescind the amended water use standards for commercial prerinse spray valves (“CPSVs”). This proposal will return the water use standards for CPSVs to the statutory baseline. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Comments must be received on or before July 15, 2025. <E T="03">Meeting:</E> DOE will hold a meeting via a webinar on Thursday, May 29, 2025, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. See section III of this document, “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-STD-0008. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0008, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: CPSV2025STD0008@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0008 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-STD-0008.</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 of this document, “Public Participation,” for further information on how to submit comments through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> <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">David.Taggart@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 of 1995</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="FP1-2">E. Issues on Which DOE Seeks Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> The Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Public Law 94-163, as amended (“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 B  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> of EPCA, established the Energy Conservation Program for Consumer Products. (42 U.S.C. 6291-6309) This includes CPSV equipment, the subject of this proposed rulemaking. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  For editorial reasons, upon codification in the U.S. Code, Part B was redesignated Part A. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Because Congress included commercial prerinse spray valves in Part B of Title III of EPCA, the consumer product provisions of Part B (not the industrial equipment provisions of Part C) apply to CPSVs. However, because CPSVs are commonly considered to be commercial equipment, as a matter of administrative convenience and to minimize confusion among interested parties, DOE placed the requirements for CPSVs into subpart O of 10 CFR part 431. Part 431 contains DOE regulations for commercial and industrial equipment. DOE refers to CPSVs as either “products” or “equipment.” </FTNT> Pursuant to this authority, DOE is proposing to rescind the amended water conservation standards for CPSVs, which are codified at title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (“CFR”) Section 431.266. Congress initially required CPSVs, manufactured on or after January 1, 2006, to have a flow rate of not more than 1.6 gallons per minute (“gpm”). 42 U.S.C. 6295(dd). DOE subsequently amended those water conservation standards to be more stringent, requiring CPSVs less than or equal to 5 spray force in ounce (“ozf”) to have a flow rate not more than 1 pgm, CPSVs greater than 5 ozf to have a flow rate no more than 1.2 gpm, and CPSVs greater than 8 ozf to have a flow rate no more than 1.28 gpm. 10 CFR 431.266(b). DOE proposes to rescind the amended water flow rate requirements in their entirety and seeks comment on all aspects of that proposal. The rescission will return the water use requirements to the statutory standard in 42 U.S.C. 6295(dd). The Secretary has tentatively determined that the anti-backsliding provision in 42 U.S.C. 6295(o)(1) does not apply because Section (o)(1) only applies to water use “in the case of showerheads, faucets, water closets, or urinals.” Additionally, DOE appears to lack authority to regulate the water use of CPSVs entirely. Part A of EPCA defines “energy conservation standard” as “a performance standard which prescribes a minimum level of energy efficiency or a maximum quantity of energy use, <E T="03">or,</E> in the case of showerheads, faucets, water closets, and urinals, water use.” 42 U.S.C. 6291(6)(A). EPCA further defines “water use” as “the quantity of water flowing through a showerhead, faucet, water closet, or urinal at point of use.” 42 U.S.C. 6291(31)(A); <E T="03">see also</E> 42 U.S.C. 6293(b)(3) (dividing energy use and water use for test procedures). A commercial prerinse spray valve is not a showerhead, faucet, water closet, or urinal. Therefore, EPCA does not seem to contemplate DOE regulating the water use of CSPVs. Regardless, withdrawal of these standards is consistent with the Secretary's proposed policy of reducing regulatory burdens wherever possible. Unless a regulatory standard is required by statute, the Secretary proposes eliminating that requirement. This new policy would support energy and water abundance, allowing Americans to produce and consume as much energy and water as they see fit. The proposed withdrawal is also consistent with classifying industrial equipment as covered equipment only if energy conservation standards will significantly increase the energy resources of the nation, without compromising the performance of industrial products. DOE has tentatively determined that the water use requirements of CSPVs does not meet that standard. DOE has tentatively determined that there is no reliance interest in the CPSV ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 36k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━