View Rule

The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, as amended, requires DOE to periodically review its standards for small, large, and very large commercial package air conditioners and heating equipment (which includes commercial unitary air conditioners and heat pumps -- or CUACs). Under amendments to EPCA made by the American Efficient Manufacturing Technical Corrections Act of 2012 Pub. L. No. 112-210 (Dec. 18, 2012), DOE must review its standards for this equipment every six years and determine whether they need amending. It also requires that, for those equipment types for which more than six years have elapsed since the most recent final rules establishing or amending a standard for that equipment, DOE must publish a proposal to amend the applicable standard.  More than six years has elapsed since the standards for this equipment were last amended. After reviewing these standards and the available data, DOE has determined that amending the current energy conservation standards for this equipment would be technologically feasible and economically justified. Accordingly, DOE proposed amending the current standards for this equipment. On April 1, 2015, DOE published a notice announcing that a working group, under the Appliance Standards Federal Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ASRAC), was created to potentially develop negotiated standards (80 FR 17363).  DOE has since published a direct final rule and a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking that embodies the standards-related aspects of the recommendations submitted to (and approved by) ASRAC.