The rulemaking proceeding of the Department of Energy’s (DOE's) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) concerning new appliance efficiency standards for commercial packaged boilers (CPBs) is final. The effective date of this rule is March 10, 2020. Compliance with the amended standards established for commercial packaged boilers is required on and after January 10, 2023. The effort on this standard first started in October 2013. Then, work on the rulemaking was completed by the Obama administration in December 2016; but in January 2017, the Trump administration declined to make it final due to the “error correction rule.” It and three other efficiency final rules were never published in the Federal Register. After litigation, DOE was ordered to publish the rules by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Natural Resources Defense Council, et al. v. Perry.
APGA with the American Gas Association (AGA), SoCal Gas, and Spire were among those filing comments adverse to the proposed rule that is now final. Specifically, APGA and AGA requested that DOE establish separate equipment classes, as the CPB final rule will effectively ban atmospherically-vented commercial boilers, resulting in many entities having to uneconomically replace equipment. DOE refused to do so in this proceeding, but last year, in a different appliance rulemaking, DOE supported separate product classes.
APGA is now considering whether to file a “petition for review” to challenge the rule in court. This would need to be done by March 10, 2020. More conversation on the path forward will take place at APGA’s January Board and Committee meetings.
For questions on this article, please contact Stuart Saulters of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at
ssaulters@apga.org.