Public Input on Energy Conservation Standards for Manufactured Housing

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 460</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2009-BT-BC-0021]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AG10</RIN> <SUBJECT>Public Input on Energy Conservation Standards for Manufactured Housing</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Request for information. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE or the Department) is issuing a request for information (“RFI”) to solicit public input regarding certain aspects of its energy conservation standards for manufactured housing. The public input received is anticipated to help guide DOE's further refinement of certain aspects of its standards for manufactured housing, as well as the supporting technical analysis, including anticipated costs and benefits. It may also serve as the basis for restructuring the approach and framework for standards that would apply to manufactured housing. DOE also seeks any additional information from the industry and public which may further inform the agency's views and regulatory program. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments and information are requested and will be accepted on or before December 2, 2025. </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> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2009-BT-BC-0021, by any of the following methods: 1. <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. 2. <E T="03">Email: ManufacturedHousing2009BC0021@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include EERE-2009-BT-BC-0021 in the subject line of the message. 3. <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. If possible, please submit all items on a compact disc (CD), in which case it is not necessary to include printed copies. 4. <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 the rulemaking process, see section III of this document. <E T="03">Docket:</E> The docket for this activity, which includes <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices, comments, and other supporting documents/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, some documents listed in the index, such as those containing information that is exempt from public disclosure, may not be publicly available. The docket web page can be found at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov/docket?D=EERE-2009-BT-BC-0021.</E> The docket web page contains simple instructions on how to access all documents, including public comments, in the docket. See section III for information on how to submit comments through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. Jeremy Williams, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Building Technologies Office, EE-5B, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 287-1941. Email: <E T="03">jeremy.williams@ee.doe.gov.</E> Ms. Ani Esenyan, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the General Counsel, GC-33, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 586-4798. Email: <E T="03">ani.esenyan@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">Manufactured_Housing@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. Introduction</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Authority and Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Rulemaking History</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Request for Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Recent Updates to the IECC</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. May 2022 Final Rule's Analytical Assumptions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Affordability</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Other Analytical Issues</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Other Issues</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Submission of Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> Manufactured housing comprises a housing category that consists of structures constructed in a factory, built on a permanent chassis, and transportable in one or more sections that are then erected on-site. <E T="03">See</E> 24 CFR 3280.2. This type of housing has traditionally been regulated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”), with the purpose of reducing personal injuries, deaths, property damage, and insurance costs, and to improve the quality, durability, safety, and affordability of these homes. <E T="03">See</E> 42 U.S.C. 5401(b). Consistent with its statutory authority, HUD administers a comprehensive regulatory framework to address a variety of aspects related to these structures, including certain elements related to their energy efficiency. <E T="03">See, e.g.,</E> 24 CFR 3280.507(a) (specifying thermal insulation requirements) and 24 CFR 3280.508(d) (detailing requirements related to the installation of high-efficiency heating and cooling equipment in manufactured homes). HUD's standards are preemptive nationwide and differ from standards developed under the auspices of (and published by) the International Code Council (“ICC”). The ICC standards, known as the International Energy Conservation Code (“IECC”), have been adopted by many state and local governments in establishing minimum design and construction requirements for the energy efficiency of traditional site-built residential and commercial buildings. Consistent with Federal law, DOE published a final rule in May 2022 establishing energy conservation standards for manufactured housing based on the IECC. <E T="03">See</E> 87 FR 32728. DOE is publishing this RFI to seek input from the industry and general public on a variety of issues that the Department will review as it considers whether to amend its energy conservation standards for manufactured housing. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Authority and Background</HD> Section 413 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, Public Law 110-140 (December 19, 2007) (“EISA”) requires DOE to establish by regulation standards for energy efficiency in manufactured housing. <E T="03">See</E> 42 U.S.C. 17071(a)(1). Prior to establishing these regulations, DOE must—(1) provide manufacturers and other interested parties with notice and an opportunity for comment and (2) consult with the Secretary of HUD, who may seek further counsel from the Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <E T="03">See</E> 42 U.S.C. 17071(a)(2). These standards must generally be based on the most recent version of the IECC, except where DOE finds that the IECC is not cost effective, or a more stringent standard would be more cost effective. A finding that standards based on the IECC are not cost effective or that standards more stringent than the IECC are cost effective would be based on the impact of the adoption of the IECC standards on the purchase price of manufactured housing and on total life-cycle construction and operating costs. <E T="03">See</E> 42 U.S.C. 17071(b)(1). In establishing its standards, DOE may consider: <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  HUD describes its Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee as “a statutory Federal Advisory Committee body charged with providing recommendations to the Secretary on the revision and interpretation of HUD's manufactured home construction and safety standards and related procedural and enforcement regulations. By regulation, HUD includes the MHCC in the process of revising the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards, Procedural and Enforcement Regulations, Model Installation Standards, Installation Program Regulations, and Dispute Resolution Program regulations.” <E T="03">www.hud.gov/hud-partners/manufactured-home#3</E> (last accessed on August 4, 2025). </FTNT> • The design and factory construction techniques of manufactured homes; • The climate zones established in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards (“the HUD Code”) rather than the climate zones under the IECC; and • Alternative practices that result in net estimated energy consumption equal to or less than the specific IECC standards. <E T="03">See</E> 42 U.S.C. 17071(b)(2). DOE is directed to update its standards not later than one year after any revision to the IECC. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> (42 U.S.C. 17071(b)(3)) <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  The IECC is administered by the International Code Council (ICC) and typically published on a 3-year development and update cycle. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Rulemaking History</HD> On May 31, 2022, DOE published a final rule to establish energy conservation standards for manufactured housing pursuant to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (“May 2022 Final ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 52k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━