The Department of Energy is revving up its war on efficient appliances, aiming to unravel a program at the center of former President Joe Biden’s climate agenda.
The department announced Monday it is withdrawing four efficiency standards from the last administration, including a major rule for electric motors that had already been finished, as I wrote this morning. It also is punting the “effective dates” for final standards for walk-in freezers and gas-fired water heaters.
In doing so, Energy Secretary Chris Wright signaled that the efficiency program — which Congress authorized 50 years ago — faces a significant overhaul. The power to choose appliances “should not belong to the federal government,” he said in a statement.
The move is the latest assault on efficiency rules by President Donald Trump, who has complained that regulated products don’t allow him to wash his clothes and hair properly. Trump has vowed to try to bring back incandescent light bulbs, although U.S. manufacturers no longer make them at scale after Biden-era rules took effect. His “unleashing American energy” executive order in January called for U.S. policy to “safeguard the American people’s freedom to choose” products like toilets and showerheads.
House Republicans also are pushing to overturn some standards, planning to vote this week to overturn Biden-era rules for refrigerators and walk-in freezers and coolers.
Andrew deLaski of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project said the administration entered “unchartered territory” by withdrawing a finalized rule, and questioned whether the action was legal. A DOE official signed the final electric motor rule in the last weeks of Biden’s term, but the agency did not publish it in the Federal Register.
Pulling the regulation, deLaski said, would have major effects on greenhouse gas emissions because the products are widely used by both homes and businesses.
“It’s a very important standard for cutting energy waste,” he said.
