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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 247 / Wednesday, December 29, 2021 / Rules and Regulations oven door window would increase the frequency with which consumers open the oven door. Id. DOE also found this increased opening would have the potential to increase energy usage. Id.
DOE also indicated that it would reevaluate oven door window designs should a window material with higher thermal insulation properties become a proven technology. Id.
In the case of residential clothes washers, DOE has maintained a product class distinction based on axis of loading i.e., front-loading and toploading units. Based on comments received during rulemakings, DOE
identified axis of loading as a feature that impacts consumer utility i.e., the longer cycle times of front-loading residential clothes washers versus cycle times for top-loaders are likely to impact consumer utility. 77 FR 32307, 32319
May 31, 2012. Conversely, DOE
eliminated the suds-saving product class because the market had changed, and, at the time of the rulemaking, DOE
did not identify any suds-saving residential clothes washers on the market in the United States. 77 FR
32307, 32317 May 31, 2012.
In a 2011 rulemaking, DOE created separate product classes for vented and ventless residential clothes dryers based on DOEs recognition of the unique utility that ventless clothes dryers offer to consumers. 76 FR 22454, 22485
April 21, 2011. This utility could be characterized as the ability to have a clothes dryer in a living area where vents are impossible to install i.e., an apartment in a high-rise building. As explained in the accompanying technical support document TSD, ventless dryers can be installed in locations where venting dryers would be precluded due to venting restrictions.3
In a rulemaking for consumer water heaters, DOE found that water heaters that utilize heat pump technology did not need to be placed in a separate product class from conventional types of hot water heaters that utilize electric resistance technology, even though water heaters utilizing heat pumps require the additional installation of a condensate drain that a hot water heater utilizing electric resistance technology does not require. 75 FR 20112, 20135
April 16, 2010. Regardless of the installation factors, DOE did not find the mode of heating water to be a performance-related feature or provide a unique utility. Id. DOE also noted comments stating that, in the then3 See pp. 359 of the technical support document, available at www.regulations.gov/document/EERE2007-BT-STD-0010-0053.

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current market, water heaters that employed heat pump technology were advertised as replacements for water heaters that employed electric resistance technology. Id.
However, DOE has cautioned that disparate products may have very different consumer utilities, thereby making direct comparisons difficult and potentially misleading. 76 FR 22454, 22485 April 21, 2011.
C. January 2021 Final Interpretive Rule On March 12, 2015, DOE published a notice of proposed rulemaking NOPR
in the Federal Register proposing to amend energy conservation standards for residential non-weatherized gas furnaces and mobile home furnaces, in furtherance of its statutory obligation to determine whether more stringent amended standards would be technologically feasible and economically justified and would save a significant amount of energy. 80 FR
13120 March 2015 Furnaces NOPR. To provide further consideration of comments suggesting a separate product class for furnaces based on input capacity and in order to mitigate some of the negative impacts of the proposed standards, DOE published a notice of data availability in the Federal Register on September 14, 2015. 80 FR 55038.
DOE subsequently published a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking SNOPR for this rulemaking in the Federal Register on September 23, 2016, in which DOE proposed to establish capacity-based product classes. 81 FR 65720 September 2016
Furnaces SNOPR. In a separate rulemaking for commercial water heaters, on May 31, 2016, DOE
published in the Federal Register a proposal to amend the energy conservation standards for commercial water heaters. 81 FR 34440 May 2016
Commercial Water Heaters NOPR.
In both the residential furnaces rulemaking and the commercial water heaters rulemaking, DOE proposed amended energy conservation standards that would effectively require products/
equipment in certain classes to use condensing technology to meet the proposed amended standards, if adopted. See 81 FR 65720, 65852 Sept.
23, 2016; 81 FR 34440, 3450334504
May 31, 2016. For the product/
equipment classes where such standards were proposed, if finalized, the amended standards would have effectively eliminated all noncondensing products/equipment that are currently on the market in those classes.
In the March 2015 Furnaces NOPR, DOE tentatively concluded that the methods by which a furnace is vented,
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which are significantly different for condensing and non-condensing furnaces,4 do not provide any separate performance-related impacts. Therefore, DOE had no statutory basis for defining a separate class based on venting and condensate drainage characteristics because venting methods do not provide unique utility to consumers beyond the basic function of providing heat, which all furnaces perform. 80 FR 13120, 13138 March 12, 2015. In the September 2016 Furnaces SNOPR, DOE
reiterated its tentative conclusion that methods of venting do not provide any performance-related utility separate from the basic function of a furnace. 81
FR 65720, 65753 Sept. 23, 2016.
Similarly, in the May 2016 Commercial Water Heaters NOPR, DOE tentatively concluded that both non-condensing and condensing gas-fired commercial water heating equipment provide the same hot water for use by commercial consumers, and, therefore, separate equipment classes could not be justified. 81 FR 34440, 34463 May 31, 2016.
On October 18, 2018, DOE received a petition for rulemaking submitted by the American Public Gas Association, Spire, Inc., the Natural Gas Supply Association, the American Gas Association, and the National Propane Gas Association, collectively referred to as the Gas Industry Petitioners, asking DOE to: 1 Issue an interpretive rule stating that DOEs proposed energy conservation standards for residential furnaces and commercial water heaters would result in the unavailability of performance characteristics within the meaning of EPCA, specifically by eliminating from the market units utilizing non-condensing technology;
and 2 withdraw the proposed energy conservation standards for residential furnaces and commercial water heaters based upon such findings. DOE
published the notice of petition in the Federal Register on November 1, 2018
and requested public comment.5 83 FR
54883.
Following consideration of the comments on the petition, DOE
published a NOPIR on July 11, 2019, presenting DOEs tentative 4 Non-condensing furnaces typically use a category I vent system, which is designed to operate with a non-positive pressure in the vent system and is not designed to withstand condensate. Condensing furnaces, on the other hand, are typically designed for category IV vent systems, which operate with a positive pressure in the vent system and are designed to withstand condensate.
5 In response to requests submitted by two stakeholders, DOE extended the initial 90-day comment period for an additional 30 days. 84 FR
449 Jan. 29, 2019.

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