On July 18, APGA submitted joint comments in response to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) request for information (RFI) pertaining to direct heating equipment (DHE), specifically consumer hearth heaters. Through the comment letter, APGA raised several concerns, including DOE’s divergence from its own rulemaking procedures.
Earlier this year, DOE issued a final determination for many DHE products, noting that new standards were not economically justified. In this more recent effort to regulate DHE, DOE attempts to stretch the definition of DHE to include consumer hearth heaters, something to which APGA objected through the comments. The comment letter also raised concerns regarding the short timeframe allotted to provide feedback when several other gas-fired appliance efficiency rulemakings that also required comments were already ongoing. APGA was joined by the American Gas Association (AGA) and the National Propane Gas Association (NPGA) in submitting these comments, and some of the comments echoed the concerns of the Hearth, Patio, and Barbeque Association (HPBA).
APGA weighs in on DOE’s appliance efficiency rulemakings that impact gas-fired appliances, as APGA members provide the energy needed to fuel these appliances, thus making public natural gas systems critical stakeholders in these rulemakings.
A copy of the comments 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.