Appliance Standards (2020 Transition)

Book 2 - Issue Papers
Entire 2020 DOE Transition book As of October 2020

DOE continually strives to meet its legal obligations under the Appliance Standards Program, while ensuring that meaningful improvements are proposed and published through a robust public process.

DOE is authorized by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), as amended, to establish energy conservation standards that are both technologically feasible and economically justified for U.S. consumers. DOE has a statutory obligation to promulgate and enforce energy conservation standards and test procedures through a public rulemaking process. The Program is comprised of interrelated efforts:

• Development of test procedures that manufacturers must follow to measure a product’s energy efficiency and/or energy use for purposes of assessing the product’s eligibility for sale in the U.S. where standards are in place, and for making representations regarding the energy use of the product. Establishment of the national minimum energy efficiency requirements based on the prescribed test procedures which, by law, must result in a significant conservation of energy and be set at the maximum level of energy efficiency that is technically feasible and economically justified.
• Enforcement of the energy conservation standards, whereby DOE can assess civil penalties against manufacturers and private labelers that sold non-compliant products.
• Support for the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) EnergyGuide labeling program with test procedure calculations, which translates to transparent market information and consistency when manufacturers file ratings for each appliance with the FTC.
• Test procedure development and some testing and verification for the ENERGY STAR program, in coordination with EPA.

The elements of the Program also entail working with a broad range of stakeholders to successfully engage market players, including manufacturers, states, utilities, energy efficiency advocates, and others in each rulemaking. The rulemaking process provides opportunities for stakeholder review and comment, and the Program has established the Appliance Standards and Rulemaking Federal Advisory Committee (ASRAC) as a means of facilitating stakeholder engagement by allowing for negotiated rulemakings under the guidelines set forth in the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

Issue(s)

Since 1989, in more than 60 rulemakings subject to statutory deadlines, the Department has issued the required rule on time as required by the statute only six times. During that same time period, the Department has had, on average, nearly 15 outstanding deadlines each year. Over the 32 years starting in 1989 through 2020, only four years had fewer than five outstanding deadlines, and three of those years were 1989-1991. In calendar year 2020, DOE is at about the annual average for outstanding deadlines.

DOE is subject to two kinds of statutory deadlines.

• The first are those in which Congress sets an initial standard in law and directs the Department to review that standard, usually three to five years after the statutory standard is enacted.
• Second, DOE is required by statute to consider whether to amend the existing standards for a given product at least once every six years. The EPCA also generally requires a three to five-year compliance lead time after DOE publishes a final rule setting a new standard under this six-year lookback requirement.

The standards rulemaking process requires that data be collected and analyzed to determine whether a new standard is justified and, if so, what that standard might be. Typically, there are no new data available until the market has adjusted to the previous rulemaking. Given the statutorily prescribed three to five-year lead-time period before compliance with a new standard is required, market adjustment to the previous standard generally does not happen until many years after issuance of the last rulemaking. The problem is that the data gathering and analysis required for DOE to consider whether new standards are justified, as well as the public participation requirements specified in EPCA for the promulgation of a rule that DOE has found are invaluable to the standards development process, simply cannot fit within a statutory timeframe for rulemaking that requires a decision to be made before the data are available. As a result, the Department struggles to meet statutory deadlines so long as the law requires that decision in six years or less, as historical precedent shows.

Nevertheless, DOE is conscious of the requirements and continually strives to responsibly undertake the required rulemakings, while ensuring that meaningful improvements are proposed and published through a robust public process. The Department dedicates substantial resources to this goal.

Status

While DOE has historically been hampered by the conflict between the statute and the data gathering and public process necessary to make decisions, DOE is striving to meet its legal obligations under the Appliance Standards Program and has made substantial progress to address missed deadlines. In fact, recently DOE’s progress on energy conservation standards has accelerated:

• Since December 2018, DOE has completed 9 final rules pertaining to energy conservation standards, including standards for commercial air compressors, commercial packaged boilers, external power supplies, general service incandescent lamps, general service lamps, portable air conditioners, process improvement rule, procedures for evaluating statutory factors for use in new or revised energy conservation standard, and uninterruptible power supplies.
• Since December 2018, DOE has completed 2 final rules pertaining to energy conservation test procedures, including cooking tops and fluorescent lamp ballasts.
• Furthermore, DOE has ongoing efforts to meet energy conservation standards obligations for 50 additional products.

Milestones

To address the timing problem (to the extent possible within the existing law), DOE issued a final rule that would streamline and modernize its process for setting energy efficiency standards and test procedures. The so-called “Process Rule” improves the internal framework used by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for establishing new energy efficiency regulations, with the goal of increasing transparency, accountability, and certainty for stakeholders. The Process Rule updates the agency’s methodology for setting energy efficiency standards and test procedures for residential appliances and commercial equipment. Among other things, the changes include:

• Establishing a threshold for “significant” energy savings at 0.3 quads of site energy over 30 years or, if less than that amount, a 10 percent improvement over existing standards. Congress requires DOE to regulate only where doing so would save significant energy, but this term is not currently defined by Congress. DOE established the 0 .3 quads threshold after conducting an analysis which found that over the last three decades, 60% of standards were projected to save 0.3 quads or more over 30 years, and those 60% of standards accounted for 96% of total energy savings. The other 40% of standards, projected to save less than 0.3 quads, accounted for just 4% of total energy savings. Establishing a threshold of significant energy savings at 0.3 quads or, if less than that amount, a 10 percent improvement will allow DOE to focus on standards projected to provide by far the largest return on investment for the American people.
• Requiring that DOE establish final test procedures 180 days before proposing a new energy conservation standard rulemaking. In public comments, stakeholders expressed concern when DOE regulates the efficiency of products before specifying how energy use will be measured via test procedure. This provision ensures that all parties involved in a standards rulemaking will know the engineering basis upon which the standards decision will be made.
• Clarifying that DOE will codify private sector consensus standards for test procedures, as described in the original Process Rule. When DOE-recognized, consensus-based bodies comprised of industry, advocates, and other stakeholders reach consensus on a test procedure that meets statutory requirements, the Process Rule requires DOE to adopt that consensus procedure as the DOE test procedure. This change provides enhanced certainty to stakeholders and allows manufacturers to test their products at lower cost than when DOE takes time to create an agency-specific testing metric.

External links

• Appliances and Electronics