Energy Conservation Program: Test Procedures for Commercial Warm Air Furnaces

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 431</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-TP-0035]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AG06</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Test Procedures for Commercial Warm Air Furnaces</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Energy (DOE or the Department) is proposing to amend the test procedure for commercial warm air furnaces adopted under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act by rescinding Appendix B, “Uniform Test Method for Measurement of the Energy Efficiency of Commercial Warm Air Furnaces (Thermal Efficiency Two).” Upon further evaluation, the Department has tentatively determined that Appendix B is unduly burdensome to conduct, thereby failing to meet the statutory criteria for adoption of a test procedure. Commercial warm air furnaces will continue to be subject to the testing requirements of Appendix A, “Uniform Test Method for Measurement of the Energy Efficiency of Commercial Warm Air Furnaces (Thermal Efficiency).” DOE invites public input on its proposal. </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 public meeting webinar on Thursday, May 29, 2025 from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. See section V (Public Participation) for 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-TP-0035. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-TP-0035 and or regulatory identification number (RIN) 1904-AG06, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: ComWarmAirFurnaces2025TP@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-TP-0035 and/or RIN 1904-AG06 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 V (Public Participation) of this document. <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-TP-0035.</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 V, “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 rulemaking may be found at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> , under the docket number EERE-2025-BT-TP-0035. <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. Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Discussion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Review Under Executive Orders 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">V. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Attendance at the Public Meeting Webinar</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Procedure for Submitting Prepared General Statements for Distribution</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Conduct of the Public Meeting Webinar</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Submission of Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Authority</HD> The Energy Policy and Conservation Act, as amended (EPCA), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> among other things, 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  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> of EPCA, Public Law 94-163 (42 U.S.C. 6311-6317, as codified) added by Public Law 95-619, Title IV, section 441(a), established the Energy Conservation Program for Certain Industrial Equipment, which sets forth a variety of provisions designed to improve energy efficiency. This covered equipment includes commercial warm air furnaces (CWAFs), the subject of this proposed rule. 42 U.S.C. 6311(1)(J). <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  All references to EPCA in this document refer to the statute as amended through the Energy Act of 2020, Public Law 116-260 (Dec. 27, 2020), which reflect the last statutory amendments that impact Parts A and A-1 of EPCA. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  For editorial reasons, upon codification in the U.S. Code, Part C was redesignated Part A-1. </FTNT> The energy conservation program under EPCA consists essentially of four parts: (1) testing; (2) labeling; (3) the establishment of Federal energy conservation standards; and (4) certification and enforcement procedures. Relevant provisions of EPCA specifically include definitions (42 U.S.C. 6311), energy conservation standards (42 U.S.C. 6313), test procedures (42 U.S.C. 6314), labeling provisions (42 U.S.C. 6315), and the authority to require information and reports from manufacturers (42 U.S.C. 6316; 42 U.S.C. 6296). The Federal testing requirements consist of test procedures that manufacturers of covered equipment must use as the basis for: (1) certifying to DOE that their equipment complies with the applicable energy conservation standards adopted pursuant to EPCA (42 U.S.C. 6316(b); 42 U.S.C. 6296), and (2) making other representations about the efficiency of that equipment (42 U.S.C. 6314(d)). Similarly, DOE uses these test procedures to determine whether the equipment complies with relevant standards promulgated under EPCA. Federal energy efficiency requirements for covered products/equipment established under EPCA generally supersede State laws and regulations concerning energy conservation testing, labeling, and standards. 42 U.S.C. 6316(a), (b); 42 U.S.C. 6297. DOE may, however, grant waivers of Federal preemption in limited circumstances for particular State laws or regulations, in accordance with the procedures and other provisions set forth under EPCA. 42 U.S.C. 6316(b)(2)(D). Under 42 U.S.C. 6314, EPCA also sets forth the criteria and procedures DOE must follow when prescribing or amending test procedures for covered equipment. EPCA requires that any test procedures not be unduly burdensome to conduct. 42 U.S.C. 6314(a)(2). EPCA requires that the test procedure for CWAFs be those generally accepted industry testing procedures or rating procedures developed or recognized by the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) or by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), as referenced in ASHRAE Standard 90.1, “Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings” (ASHRAE Standard 90.1). 42 U.S. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 42k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━