Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Compact Residential Clothes Washers

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 430</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-STD-0019]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF89</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Compact 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 efficiency standards for compact residential clothes washers. If adopted, this will eliminate the efficiency standards for compact residential clothes washers completely, leaving the standards for standard size residential clothes washers. </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-0019. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0019, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: CompactCW2025STD0019@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0019 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-0019.</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-11000 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 </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> DOE is proposing to rescind the efficiency standards for compact residential clothes washers, codified in title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (“CFR”) 430.32(g). DOE has set regulatory efficiency standards for top-loading or front-loading compact clothes washers, defined as clothes washers with “less than 1.6 ft capacity.” 10 CFR 430.32(g). Top-loading compact washers manufactured after January 1, 2018, must have an integrated modified energy factor of at least 1.15 and a water factor of not more than 12.0. 10 CFR 430.32(g)(1). Front-loading compact washers must have an integrated modified energy factor of at least 1.13 and a water factor of not more than 8.3. <E T="03">Id.</E> Beginning on March 1, 2028, such top-loading washers must have an energy efficiency ratio of at least 3.79 and a water efficiency ratio of at least 0.29. 10 CFR 430.32(g)(2). And such front-loading washers must have an energy efficiency ratio of at least 5.02 and a water efficiency ratio of at least 0.71. <E T="03">Id.</E> DOE proposes to rescind these efficiency standards for compact washers in their entirety and seeks comment on all aspects of that proposal. If adopted, the rescission will eliminate the efficiency requirements for top-loading or front-loading compact-size residential clothes washers. 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 compact residential clothes washers and concluded that the authority likely does not permit the regulations. Congress set efficiency standards “top-loading or front-loading standard-size residential clothes washer[s] manufactured on or after January 1, 2011.” (42 U.S.C. 6295(g)(9)(A)) Congress specified “standard-size” for its requirements, and did not set a standard for compact washers. Congress then directed DOE “[n]ot later than December 31, 2011,” to “publish a final rule determining whether to amend <E T="03"> the standards in effect for clothes washers </E> manufactured on or after January 1, 2015.” (42 U.S.C. 6295(g)(9)(B) (emphasis added)) Thus, it appears that DOE has statutory authority to amend the standards for standard-size clothes washers, but not other clothes washers. DOE, therefore, has tentatively concluded that it lacks authority to issue regulations for compact clothes washers unless it makes a determination to classify compact washers as a consumer product under 42 U.S.C. 6292(b). And the Secretary has tentatively determined that it is neither necessary nor appropriate to classify compact residential clothes washers as consumer products. <E T="03">Second,</E> the Secretary has tentatively found that the efficiency standards for compact washers are not economically justified. Among other factors, the efficiency standards appear to lessen the utility of clothes washers by lengthening the time it takes to wash clothes. <E T="03">See generally</E> 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 does best. <E T="03">Third,</E> the Secretary is proposing a new policy to reduce regulatory burden wherever possible. Unless a regulatory standard is required by statute, the secretary proposes eliminating that requirement. DOE's new policy would support energy and water abundance, allowing Americans to produce and consume as much energy and water as they desire. DOE has tentatively determined that there is no reliance interest in an unlawful regulation. <E T="03">See Dep't of Homeland Sec.</E> v. <E T="03">Regents of the Univ. of California,</E> 591 U.S. 1, 32 (2020). These proposed rescissions are not designed to achieve a maximum reduction in energy efficiency because the Secretary has tent ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 36k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━