Rescinding the Amended Water Use Standards for Residential Dishwashers

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 430</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-STD-0023]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF93</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rescinding the Amended Water Use Standards for Residential Dishwashers</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy (DOE or the Department). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> DOE is proposing to rescind the amended water use standards for residential dishwashers. This will return the water use requirement for a standard size dishwasher to the statutory standard of 6.5 gallons per cycle and for a compact size dishwasher to the statutory standard of 4.5 gallons per cycle. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> 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-0023. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0023, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: Dishwashers2025STD 0023@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0023 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 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-0023.</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> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4), a summary of this rule may be found at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> , under the docket number <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="FP1-2">N. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Attendance at 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 the regulatory water use requirements for residential dishwashers, codified in 10 CFR 430.32(f). For residential dishwashers “manufactured on or after January 1, 2010,” Congress has set the maximum water use for a standard size dishwasher at 6.5 gallons per cycle and for a compact size dishwasher at 4.5 gallons per cycle. 42 U.S.C. 6295(g)(10). DOE, by regulation, has set more stringent requirements. For “dishwashers manufactured on or after May 30, 2013, standard size dishwashers must not exceed 5.0 gallons per cycle.” 10 CFR 430.32(f)(1)(i). “Compact size dishwashers shall not exceed . . . 3.5 gallons per cycle.” 10 CFR 430.32(f)(1)(ii). In the future, residential dishwashers face more stringent requirements. “All dishwashers manufactured on or after April 23, 2027” must not exceed 3.3 gallons per cycle and 3.1 gallons per cycle for standard and compact models respectively. 10 CFR 430.32(f)(2). DOE proposes to rescind these regulatory water use standards in their entirety and seeks comment on all aspects of that proposal. The rescission will return the water use requirements to the standard in section 6295(g)(10), which is at 6.5 gallons per cycle for standard dishwashers and 4.5 gallons per cycle for compact dishwashers. 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 water use regulations of dishwashers and concluded that the authority likely does not permit the regulations. As one court has suggested, “EPCA does not appear to contemplate overlap between the products subject to ‘energy’ regulation and those subject to ‘water’ regulation.” <E T="03">Louisiana</E> v. <E T="03">United States DOE,</E> 90 F.4th 461, 470 (5th Cir. 2024). Dishwashers use energy, so DOE can seemingly regulate the amount of energy used by dishwashers, but not water use. EPCA defines “energy conservation standard” as “a performance standard which prescribes a minimum level of energy efficiency or a maximum quantity of energy use, <E T="03">or,</E> in the case of showerheads, faucets, water closets, and urinals, water use.” 42 U.S.C. 6291(6)(A). EPCA further defines “water use” as “the quantity of water flowing through a showerhead, faucet, water closet, or urinal at point of use.” 42 U.S.C. 6291(31)(A); <E T="03">see also</E> 42 U.S.C. 6293(b)(3) (dividing energy use and water use for test procedures); 42 U.S.C. 6295(o) (similar). A dishwasher, obviously, is not a showerhead, faucet, water closet, or urinal. Therefore, EPCA does not seem to contemplate DOE regulating the water use of dishwashers. This is not surprising. Under the initial EPCA, DOE did not regulate water use. Water use was added later, specifically limited to showerheads, faucets, water closets, and urinals. And, even though Congress itself has set the water use for dishwashers in section 6295(g)(10), the plain text of EPCA does not seem to permit DOE to change those standards. Therefore, DOE seeks comment on all aspects of DOE's statutory authority as relevant to the water use regulations of dishwashers. <E T="03">Second,</E> the Secretary has tentatively found that the water use regulations are not economically justified. Among other factors, the regulatory water use restrictions appear to lessen the utility of dishwashers by lengthening the time it takes to wash dishes. <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's is proposing a new policy to reduce regulatory burden wherever possible. Unless a regulatory standard is required by statute, ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 39k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━