Energy Conservation Program: Proposed Withdrawal of Determination of Miscellaneous Refrigeration Products as a Covered Consumer Product

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Parts 429 and 430</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-DET-0009]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF79</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Proposed Withdrawal of Determination of Miscellaneous Refrigeration Products as a Covered Consumer Product</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 withdrawal of determination; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> DOE is proposing to withdraw its prior determination that miscellaneous refrigeration products qualify as covered products under Part A of Title III of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, as amended (“EPCA”). </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 1:00 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 EERE-2025-BT-DET-0009. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-DET-0009, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: MiscRefrigeration2025DET0009@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-DET-0009 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-DET-0009.</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">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 Orders 12866 and 13563</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> Under EPCA, DOE may add consumer products to the list of covered products for which energy conservation standards can be established. (42 U.S.C. 6292(b)(1)) The coverage determination procedures require DOE to conclude that classifying products of such type as covered products is necessary or appropriate to carry out the purposes of this chapter, among other requirements. ( <E T="03">Id.</E> at 42 U.S.C. 6292(b)(1)(A)) Only after coverage is determined, DOE may then adopt standards and test procedures regulating such products, pursuant to the requirements set out in the statute. (See generally 42 U.S.C. 6293, 6295) On November 8, 2011, DOE published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a notice of proposed determination (“NOPD”) that proposed to determine coverage of consumer refrigeration products without compressors. 76 FR 69147. On October 31, 2013, DOE published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a supplemental notice of proposed determination of coverage (“SNOPD”) in which it tentatively determined that miscellaneous refrigeration products (“MREFs”), which at the time included wine chillers, non-compressor refrigeration products, hybrid products ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> refrigeration products that combine a wine chiller with a refrigerator and/or freezer), and consumer ice makers, would likely satisfy the provisions of 42 U.S.C. 6292(b)(1). 78 FR 65223 (“October 2013 SNOPD”). On April 1, 2015, DOE published a notice of intent to establish a MREF Working Group under the Appliance Standards and Rulemaking Federal Advisory Committee that would use the negotiated rulemaking process to discuss and, if possible, reach consensus recommendations on the scope of coverage, definitions, test procedures, and energy conservation standards for MREFs. 80 FR 17355. On March 4, 2016, DOE published a SNOPD proposing a scope of coverage and definitions for MREFs consistent with the recommendations of the MREF Working Group. See 81 FR 11454 (“March 2016 SNOPD”). After considering public comments, data, and information from interested parties submitted in response to the October 2013 SNOPD and the March 2016 SNOPD, DOE finalized the coverage determination for MREFs. 81 FR 46768 (July 18, 2016) (“July 2016 Determination”). As part of the July 2016 Determination, DOE adopted definitions, test procedures, and certification requirements for MREFs. <E T="03">Id.</E> at 81 FR 46789-46805. DOE has reevaluated whether including MREFs as a covered product is necessary and appropriate to carry out the purposes of EPCA. Based on that evaluation, DOE has tentatively determined that, at this time, it is not necessary or appropriate to classify MREFs as a covered product to carry out the purposes of EPCA. EPCA provides the Secretary discretion in classifying a type of consumer product as a covered product because the Secretary <E T="03">may</E> classify if certain requirements are met. (See 42 U.S.C. 6292(b) (emphasis added)). While DOE found in the July 2016 Determination that classifying MREFs as a covered product was needed to set energy conservation standards for MREFs and carry out EPCA's purposes to conserve energy supplies and provide for improved energy efficiency of other consumer products, DOE has reevaluated that determination. See 81 FR 46768, 46773. Using the discretion provided by EPCA for classifying additional covered products, DOE has tentatively determined that there are other avenues to conserve energy supplies than classifying MREFs as a covered product and establishing standards. Therefore, DOE has tentatively found that classifying MREFs as a covered product is not necessary or appropriate to carry out the purposes of EPCA. Additionally, if DOE proceeds with issuing a final withdrawal of the coverage determination for MREFs, then DOE subsequently lacks the authority to prescribe test procedures and energy conservation stan ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 59k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━