Energy Conservation Program: Rescinding the Amended Water Conservation Standards for Commercial Clothes Washers

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 431</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-BT-STD-0018]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF88</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Rescinding the Amended Water Conservation Standards for Commercial Clothes Washers</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 repeal the amended water conservation standards for commercial clothes washers. This will return the standards for commercial clothes washers to the statutory baseline. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before July 15, 2025. DOE will hold a webinar on Thursday, May 29, 2025, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 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-0018. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0018, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: ComClothesWashers2025STD0018@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-BT-STD-0018 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-0018.</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="FP-2">III. 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">IV. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> DOE is proposing to rescind the amended water conservation standards for commercial clothes washers, codified in 10 CFR 431.156. Congress required each “commercial clothes washer manufactured on or after January 1, 2007” to have “a Modified Energy Factor of at least 1.26” and “a Water Factor of not more than 9.5.” 42 U.S.C. 6313(e). DOE, by regulation, has set more stringent requirements. Each “commercial clothes washer manufactured on or after January 8, 2013, and before January 1, 2018,” must have a modified energy factor no less than 1.6 (for top-loading washers) and 2.0 (for front-loading washers), and a water factor no greater than 8.5 (for top-loading washers) and 5.5 (for front-loading washers). DOE proposes to rescind the water factor requirements in their entirety and seeks comment on all aspects of that proposal. The rescission will return the water use requirements to the statutory standard in section 6313(e). The Secretary has determined that the anti-backsliding provision in section 6313(a)(6)(B)(iii) does not apply to the water use requirements for commercial washers. That Section states the “Secretary may not prescribe any amended standard under this paragraph that increases the maximum allowable <E T="03">energy use,</E> or decreases the minimum required <E T="03">energy efficiency,</E> of a covered product. 42 U.S.C. 6313(a)(6)(B)(iii) (emphasis added). “Energy efficiency” is defined as “the ratio of the useful output of services from an article of industrial equipment to the energy use by such article.” 42 U.S.C. 6311(3). “Energy use” is defined “the quantity of energy directly consumed by an article of industrial equipment at the point of use.” 42 U.S.C. 6311(4). Water use has nothing to do with the energy consumed by a clothes washer. Therefore, the anti-backsliding provision does not apply. After reconsidering the water use standards for commercial clothes washers, the Secretary has tentatively determined that DOE lacks authority to regulate the water use of commercial clothes washers. Section 6313(a)(6) is titled “[a]mended energy efficiency standards.” The statute does not seem to contemplate that DOE will change the water use requirements—only the energy requirements. Therefore, the standards to be amended in section 6313 refer only to energy standards. Regardless, the DOE has determined that it is economically justified to revert back to the statutory standard. Among other factors, the regulatory water use restrictions appear to lessen the utility of clothes washers by lengthening the time it takes to wash clothes. <E T="03">See</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. 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 regulatory standard. DOE's new policy would support energy and water abundance, allowing Americans to produce and consume as much energy and water as they see fit. DOE has tentatively determined that there is no reliance interest in the water use standards. 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. <E T="03">See</E> 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 rule. DOE seeks comments on any reason to rescind or not rescind these regulations. DOE seeks comments on any reason to rescind or not rescind these regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Review Und ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 36k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━