DOE Postpones HVAC Efficiency Standards

As President Donald Trump’s administration continues to make changes to the policies Joe Biden established over the last four years, the HVAC industry is once again being affected.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has just announced that the Department of Energy will postpone the implementation of future HVAC efficiency standards that would apply to central air conditioners, walk-in coolers and freezers, gas instantaneous water heaters, and commercial refrigeration equipment. It is important to point out that there is no recently finalized air conditioner efficiency standard to delay at this time and this action does not undo the standard that went into place two years ago.

By rolling back these mandates, the Trump administration feels it is giving power back to the consumer. According to the administration, the actions are a key step in undoing the previous administration’s burdensome policies that have driven up costs, reduced choice, and diminished the quality of Americans’ home appliances.

“A top priority for President Trump is lowering costs for American families,” Secretary Wright said. “Today’s announcement will foster consumer choice and lower prices — it is a win for all Americans. The people, not the government, should be choosing the home appliances and products they want at prices they can afford.”

The Biden administration introduced these mandates to improve the energy efficiency of American homes. The argument against the mandates is they lead to higher upfront costs for consumers at a time when HVAC prices are already spiking. In addition, some HVAC contractors argue that these increased prices will cause more homeowners to repair instead of replace.

The HVAC industry is not alone in these rollbacks. The action also applies to washers and dryers, general service lamps, and air compressors.

Additionally, the Department of Energy is creating a new energy efficiency category for natural gas tankless water heaters. Creating a new category for these water heaters exempts these products from the Biden-Harris Administration’s rules.

This latest news continues the swings back and forth on appliance energy standards that many industries have had to deal with — including HVAC.

In Trump’s first term, his administration slowed or did not address many of the efficiency standards that were scheduled to be reviewed. When the Biden administration took over, the DOE spent a lot of time both playing catchup to deadlines that had been missed, as well as addressing new ones. As always, HVAC manufacturers, distributors, and contractors are caught in the middle.

This might be tougher than just a stroke of the pen for President Trump and the Department of Energy, though. The Energy Policy and Conservation Act has an “anti-backsliding” provision that states that no new appliance standard can be weaker than the previous standard. Congress governs the efficiency laws, so both the House of Representatives and the Senate would need to repeal those laws.

The last Trump administration tried to get around that by arguing that some products were actually different items and therefore not subject to those regulations.