On February 25, APGA, the American Gas Association (AGA), Spire, and Thermo Products LLC filed a petition in the D.C. Circuit Court, challenging the Department of Energy’s revocation of the final interpretive rule pertaining to condensing and non-condensing gas-fired appliances.
The previous administration finalized an interpretive rule, which determined that condensing and non-condensing technologies were considered protected features under relevant federal law. Under that interpretation, no minimum efficiency standard promulgated by DOE could eliminate either technology, meaning that DOE would have to establish separate product classes to ensure that both condensing and non-condensing technologies could remain on the market.
With this reversed interpretation, DOE could propose an energy conservation standard (ECS) that creates a de facto ban on non-condensing appliances, which would make it extremely costly or impossible for many Americans to replace existing appliances and lead to fuel-switching. There may be such rules out for public comment in the next few months, as DOE has submitted two such proposed rules to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review: non-weatherized residential furnaces and commercial water heaters. Both of these rules were withdrawn, per APGA’s request, when the initial final interpretive rule was issued in January 2021.
A copy of the petition is
available here.
For questions on this article, please contact Renée Lani of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-0836 or by email at
rlani@apga.org.