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CFA Joins Advocates in Providing Recommendations for Improvements to the DOE’s Process Rule

 |  Testimony & Comments

In the wake of the Trump Administration’s weakening of the Department of Energy’s Process Rule, CFA joined advocates’ in providing recommendations for improvements to  the Process Rule regarding test procedure standards and energy efficiency standards, specifically, support for:

  • Restoring the Department’s discretion to depart from the Process Rule’s general guidance.
  • Eliminating the threshold for determining when the significant energy savings criterion is met.
  • Removing the requirement to conduct a comparative analysis in addition to DOE’s analysis of economic justification under the factors listed in the statute
  • Clarifying that DOE may make modifications to industry test procedures to comply with the requirements of EPCA, as well as for certification, compliance, and enforcement purposes
  • As part of a non-binding Process Rule, reverting to DOE’s 1996 guidance regarding completion of test procedure rulemakings prior to issuance of a NOPR for an energy conservation standards rulemaking
  • Reverting to DOE’s prior practice on direct final rules, and
  • Clarifying that DOE will conduct negotiated rulemakings in accordance with the Negotiated Rulemaking Act.

In addition, DOE was urged to make additional revisions to the Process Rule in a subsequent NOPR.