Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Microwave Ovens

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 430</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-STD-0014]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF84</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Microwave Ovens</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy (DOE). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> DOE is proposing to rescind the energy conservation standards for microwave ovens. The rescission will eliminate the efficiency requirements for microwave ovens. </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 webinar on Thursday, May 29, 2025, from 1 to 4 p.m. See section III, “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-0014. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0014, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: MicrowaveOvens2025STD0014@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0014 and/or RIN 1904-AF84 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, “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, 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-0014.</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 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 Webinar</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Procedure for Submitting Prepared General Statements for Distribution</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Conduct of 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 energy conservation standards for microwave ovens, codified in 10 CFR 430.32(j)(3). EPCA lists nineteen consumer products that are considered covered products under the statute, including kitchen ranges and ovens. 42 U.S.C. 6292(a)(1)-(19)). 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. (42 U.S.C. 6292(b)(1)(A)) Only after coverage is determined, may DOE 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) DOE may also prescribe energy conservation standards for a type (or class) of covered product that consumes a different kind of energy from that consumed by other covered products of a similar type, or that have a capacity or performance-related feature which other products within its type do not have and which justifies a different standard. (42 U.S.C. 6295(q)) The term “class of covered products” means a group of covered products, the functions or intended uses of which are similar, as determined by the Secretary. (42 U.S.C. 6291(9)) On September 8, 1998, DOE published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a Final Rule amending its regulations to substitute the term “kitchen ranges and ovens” with “cooking products,” in 10 CFR 430.32(j). DOE proposes to rescind the efficiency standards for microwave ovens in their entirety and seeks comment on all aspects of that proposal. The proposed rule rescission will eliminate the efficiency requirements for microwave ovens. DOE is proposing to rescind these regulations for multiple independent reasons, including but not limited to the following. The purpose of section 6292 is to provide Federal energy conservation standards applicable to covered products and authorize the Secretary to prescribe amended or new energy conservation standards for each type (or class) of covered product. 42 U.S.C. 6292. The term “covered product” means a consumer product of a type specified in section 6292 of title 42. Microwave ovens are not a consumer product type specified in section 6292, which lists kitchen ranges and ovens. Microwave ovens have not been determined by the Secretary to be a covered product. Nor are microwave ovens specifically discussed in 42 U.S.C. 6295(h), which provides energy conservation standards applicable to covered products. Removing the conservation standards for microwave ovens from the “cooking products” covered product class in 10 CFR 430.32 is consistent with the plain meaning of 42 U.S.C. 6292(10). Providing energy conservation standards for products not deemed to be covered products is inconsistent with 42 U.S.C. 6295. Additionally and independently, 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 rule rescissions are not designed to achieve a maximum reduction in energy efficiency because the Secretary has tentatively determined that the current regulations are unlawful, that they are not economically justified, and that they are inconsistent with the policy of maximally reducing regulatory burdens. See 42 U.S.C. 6295(p)(1). These are the same reasons that DOE is considering the change of position that is contemplated by this proposed rule. DOE seeks comments on any reason to rescind or not rescind these regulations. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 35k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━