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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 237 / Tuesday, December 14, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
jspears on DSK121TN23PROD with RULES1

DOE has considered the suggestions by some commenters to implement a timeline that is longer than proposed 90-day target e.g., 120 days, but that would be mandatory. Although it is likely that 120 days would be sufficient for the vast majority of waiver and interim waiver petitions, any mandatory timeline that would result in the automatic granting of an interim waiver would introduce the previously described risks of an alternate test procedure being used that produces results that are unrepresentative, does not provide accurate comparative results, and/or allows a manufacturer to place a product in the market that does not meet applicable energy conservation standards.
Regarding the appropriateness of the proposed 90-day target, DOEs evaluation of waiver and interim waiver petitions since the December 2020 Final Rule indicates that a 90-day period of evaluation is achievable in most cases.
Those cases that required longer than 90
days since the submission of the initial petition have been cases where DOE
determined that initial petition to be invalid, or where additional time has been required for DOE to actively engage with the manufacturer to provide additional technical information necessary for DOE to evaluate the merits of the petition.
DOE also surmises that maintaining a mandatory timeline may increase the likelihood of an interim waiver denial in the event that there is insufficient time for DOE to resolve outstanding questions regarding the petition;
whereas, affording a longer time period within which to actively engage the manufacturer could result in a petition being granted that would have otherwise been denied under a mandatory timeline scenario.
Regarding the timing of when DOE
posts a waiver or interim waiver application to its website, DOE
disagrees with commenters that suggested that DOE post an interim waiver petition on its public website immediately upon receipt, rather than waiting until DOE deems the petition to be complete. Most notably, DOE has received multiple interim waiver petitions containing requests for confidential treatment of information 9
9 Pursuant to 10 CFR 430.27b1iv and 10 CFR
431.401b1iv, any request for confidential treatment of any information contained in a petition for waiver or in supporting documentation must be accompanied by a copy of the petition, application, or supporting documentation from which the information claimed to be confidential has been deleted. DOE will publish in the Federal Register the petition and supporting documents from which confidential information, as determined by DOE, has been deleted in accordance with 10 CFR

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without a corresponding copy from which the information claimed to be confidential has been properly deleted consistent with the request.10 In such cases, DOE engages with the manufacturer to resubmit the petition with the information for which confidential treatment is requested properly redacted before posting to DOEs website. This is one of several checks that DOE performs on every waiver and interim waiver petition to determine whether an application is complete. Were DOE to be required to post a waiver or interim waiver petition to its website before determining that the petition is complete, CBI could be disclosed inadvertently, among other risks.
Once complete, a petition is posted to DOEs website providing interested parties notification that DOE is evaluating a request for an interim waiver along with the substance of that petition. The regulations continue to require petitioners to notify potentially interested manufacturers. 10 CFR
430.27c1 and 10 CFR 431.401c1.
DOE notes that neither the process established under the December 2020
Final Rule, nor the process adopted in this final rule provide for a formal comment process for petitions posted to DOEs website. The amendments adopted today continue to provide for publication in the Federal Register notification of receipt of a petition and grant or denial of an interim waiver. Id.
DOE considered the potential benefits and risks of allowing the opportunity for public comment before granting a decision on an interim waiver petition.
However, introducing a comment period before rendering a decision on an interim waiver petition would prolong the review process, outweighing the benefit of early stakeholder input. As discussed, the current process affords interested parties the ability to comment on the alternate test procedure granted in an interim waiver before DOE makes a determination whether to grant a waiver.
After carefully considering the comments received on this topic, DOE
has decided to implement a 90-day target for reviewing interim waiver petitions, which would not be mandatory, and which would provide a more realistic and appropriate timeline for evaluating interim waiver petitions than the current mandatory 45-day 1004.11 and will solicit comments, data, and information with respect to the determination of the petition.
10 For example, in one such case, the redacted information could be discerned by copying and pasting the blacked-out text from the PDF
document into a new document.

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period. As discussed, DOEs recent experience indicates that a 90-day timeline should be sufficient for the vast majority of interim waiver petitions; and the flexibility to extend beyond 90 days as needed will afford additional time for those petitions for which a longer timeframe is necessary. This final rule implements the 90-day target as proposed in the August 2021 NOPR.
C. Clarification of Necessary Contents of Interim Waiver To clarify the necessary contents of a petition for interim waiver, DOE
proposed amendments to 10 CFR
430.27b and 10 CFR 431.401b, which specify the requirements for petition content and publication. As noted previously, many of the delays in interim waiver processing arise from the back-and-forth between DOE and manufacturers to ensure that the manufacturer has submitted the necessary information to support its request. Before DOE can act on a request for interim waiver, DOE may correspond with a manufacturer several times to obtain all necessary information and ensure that the manufacturer has submitted a complete petition. In addition, to formalize the process by which DOE will respond to incomplete petitions, DOE proposed to specify at 10
CFR 430.27e2 and 10 CFR
431.401e2 that a petition for interim waiver will be considered incomplete if it does not meet the content requirements of 10 CFR 430.27b or 10
CFR 431.401b, as applicable. In such a case, DOE would notify the petitioner of an incomplete petition via email. DOE
would continue the iterative process by which DOE assists manufacturers in completing their petitions. Consistent with these proposals, DOE also proposed to state at 10 CFR 430.27e1
and 10 CFR 431.401e1 that DOE will post a petition for interim waiver on its website within five business days of receipt of a complete petition.
DOE similarly proposed amendments to 10 CFR 430.27g and 10 CFR
431.401g to specify the information that must be provided in a request to extend a waiver to additional basic models. Specifically, DOE proposed that the petition for extension must identify the particular basic models for which a waiver extension is requested, each brand name under which the identified basic models will be distributed in commerce, and documentation supporting the claim that the additional basic models employ the same technology as the basic models set forth in the original petition. Including these requirements in the regulations would make clear to manufacturers the
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