On October 24, APGA submitted joint comments in response to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed minimum appliance efficiency standards for consumer clothes dryers, including those fueled by natural gas. The American Gas Association (AGA) also joined the comments.
The comments were generally in support of those submitted by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM), whose members manufacture consumer clothes dryers. Of note, APGA also supported AHAM’s request for maintaining vented and ventless product classes for electric dryers, as their arguments are somewhat analogous to one of APGA’s arguments for the necessity of separate product classes for condensing and non-condensing gas-fired appliances.
APGA had requested an extension to the comment period due to DOE releasing additional data less than two weeks before the end of the comment period. DOE denied this request, reasoning that sufficient time was given to all interested parties to develop comments. This is a position DOE may take in future rulemakings, especially those where the underlying Technical Support Document (TSD) was previously released for feedback before DOE issued a notice of proposed rulemaking, as was the case here.
APGA will continue to weigh 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 gas systems critical stakeholders in these rulemakings.
A copy of the comment letter 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.