Energy Conservation Program: Exempt Power Supplies Under the EPS Service Parts Act of 2014

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 429</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-STD-0010]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF80</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Exempt Power Supplies Under the EPS Service Parts Act of 2014</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 revise its existing regulations regarding the reporting requirements imposed on exempt consumer external power supplies adopted under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, as amended (“EPCA”). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Written comments and information are requested and will be accepted 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 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 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 1904-AF80. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0010 and or regulatory identification number RIN 1904-AF80, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: EPS2025STD0010@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0010 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, see section III of this document, “Public Participation.” <E T="03">Docket:</E> The docket for this proposed rulemaking, which includes <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices, 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-0010.</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 Taggert, 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.Taggert@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> DOE is proposing to rescind, in part, the rule adopted by DOE on May 16, 2016, titled “Energy Conservation Program: Exempt External Power Supplies Under the EPS Service Parts Act of 2014,” codified in title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (“CFR”) parts 429 and 430. See 81 FR 30157. In the EPS Service Parts Act of 2014, Public Law 113-263, Congress authorized the Secretary of Energy to require manufacturers of exempted products to report the annual total units that were shipped as service or spare parts and either fall below the International Efficiency Level VI standard or failed to meet amended energy conservation standards set by the DOE under the Energy Conservation Program. DOE is proposing a new policy to reduce regulatory burden wherever possible. Unless a reporting requirement is required by statute, the Secretary proposes eliminating that requirement. Therefore, DOE proposes to rescind this rule in its entirety and seek comment on all aspects of that proposal, including but not limited to the prior rule's consistency with statutory authority and the constitution, the prior rule's costs and benefits, and the prior rule's effect on innovation, development, and private enterprise. <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 (recognizing that some benefits and costs are difficult to quantify); (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. <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 preparation of an initial regulatory flexibility analysis (“IRFA”) and a final regulatory flexibility analysis (“FRFA”) for any rule that by law must be proposed for public comment, unless the agency certifies that the rule, if promulgated, will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. As required by E.O. 13272, “Proper Consideration of Small Entities in Agency Rulemaking,” 67 FR 53461 (Aug. 16, 2002), DOE published procedures and policies on February 19, 2003, to ensure that the potential impacts of its rules on small entities are properly considered during the rulemaking process. 68 FR 7990. DOE has made its procedures and policies available on the Office of the General Counsel's website ( <E T="03">www.energy.gov/gc/office-general-counsel</E> ). DOE reviewed this proposed rescission under the provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and the policies and procedures published on February 19, 2003. This proposal proposes to remove reporting requirements. Therefore, DOE initially concludes that the impacts of the proposed rule would not have a “significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities,” and that the preparation of an IRFA is not warranted. DOE will transmit this certification and supporting statement of factual basis to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration for review under 5 U.S.C. 605(b). <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Review Under the Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> This proposed rule imposes no new in ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━