Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Residential Clothes Washers

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 430</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-STD-002]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF92</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Residential Clothes Washers</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 residential clothes washers. If finalized, this will return the water use requirement for clothes washers to the statutory water factor of not more than 9.5. </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-0022. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0022, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: ResClothesWashers2025STD0022@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0022 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/ResClothesWashers2025STD0022@ee.doe.gov.</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, “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">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="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> DOE is proposing to rescind the regulatory water use requirements for residential clothes washers, codified in title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (“CFR”) 430.32(g). For a “top-loading or front-loading standard-size residential clothes washer” manufactured on or after January 1, 2011, Congress has set the water factor to not more than 9.5. (42 U.S.C. 6295(g)(9)) DOE, by regulation, has set more stringent requirements. For clothes washers manufactured after 2018, DOE has set the water factor for top-loading compact, top-loading standard, front-loading compact, and front-loading standard clothes washers to 12, 6.5, 8.3, and 4.7. 10 CFR 430.32(g)(1). A lower water factor is more efficient. For clothes washers manufactured after March 1, 2028, the DOE regulations switch to a water efficiency ratio. For top-loading ultracompact, top-loading standard, front-loading compact, and front-loading standard clothes washers the water efficiency ratio must be at least 0.29, 0.57, 0.71, and 0.77 respectively. 10 CFR 430.32(g)(2). After March 1, 2028, the DOE regulations also add a new category, semi-automatic clothes washers, which must have a water efficiency ratio of at least 0.27. <E T="03">Id.</E> DOE proposes to rescind these regulatory water use standards in their entirety and seeks comment on all aspects of that proposal. The rescission will return the water use requirements for top-loading or front-loading standard-size residential clothes washers to the standard in 42 U.S.C. 6295(g)(9), which is water factor of not more than 9.5. Compact clothes washers, under the statute, do not have a water factor requirement. DOE is proposing to rescind these regulations for multiple independent reasons, including but not limited to the following. <E T="03">First,</E> DOE has reconsidered the statutory authority for its water use regulations of clothes washers and concluded that the authority likely does not permit the regulations. As one court has suggested, “EPCA does not appear to contemplate overlap between the products subject to ‘energy’ regulation and those subject to ‘water’ regulation.” <E T="03">Louisiana</E> v. <E T="03">United States DOE,</E> 90 F.4th 461, 470 (5th Cir. 2024). Clothes washers use energy, so DOE can seemingly regulate the amount of energy used, but not the water use. 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); 42 U.S.C. 6295(o) (similar). A clothes washer, no matter the type, is not a showerhead, faucet, water closet, or urinal. Therefore, EPCA does not seem to contemplate DOE regulating the water use of clothes washers. Under the initial EPCA, DOE did not regulate water use at all. Water use was added later, and was specifically limited to showerheads, faucets, water closets, and urinals. Even though Congress itself has set the water use for standard size clothes washers in section 6295(g)(9), the plain text of EPCA does not seem to permit DOE to change those standards, much less add new standards for compact clothes washers. Therefore, DOE seeks comment on all aspects of DOE's statutory authority as relevant to the water use regulations of clothes washers. <E T="03">Second,</E> the Secretary has tentatively found that the water use regulations are not economically justified. Among other factors, the regulatory water use restrictions appear to lessen the utility of clothes washers by lengthening the time it takes to wash clothes. 85 FR 68727. And the regulations are not consistent with the need for national water conservation. Consumers are best situated to decide whether a given product is economically justified, as that is precisely what the free market doe ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 37k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━