Is it Time for Congress to Reform the Energy Policy and Conservation Act?

Signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1975, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) has been a cornerstone for the federal government in setting energy policy for the past half-century. The law was the United States’ response to the 1973 oil crisis that saw energy supplies become largely unavailable, causing prices to soar for American consumers and businesses.

Among the many provisions in EPCA is the authority for the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to regulate the energy efficiency of household appliances, which can directly impact which types of products manufacturers are permitted to make available for their U.S. customers. The authority granted in EPCA necessitates DOE to identify a particular appliance as a “covered product” under the Act; establish a test procedure to measure its energy use; adopt a metric to measure the product’s energy efficiency, and setting thresholds that products must meet; and finally establish labeling and certification requirements that product manufacturers must abide by to make their products available on the U.S. market (Note: the labeling requirements are regulated by DOE for commercial products, but actually regulated by the Federal Trade Commission for residential products, as opposed to DOE).

While EPCA is very comprehensive on its instructions to DOE on how these requirements should be fulfilled, the Act has not undergone significant reform or modernization since its inception nearly a half century ago. Today, as energy and climate policy continue to increasingly find their way into the political spotlight, it is worth asking if the time has come for federal policymakers to unlock EPCA and engage in some clean up.

Relating to DOE’s regulation of appliance energy efficiency, one change that should be considered is the statutory timeframe for the Department to engage in “lookback” periods for test procedures and efficiency standards of covered appliances. EPCA requires DOE to review the test procedure for a covered residential product every seven years; and the energy efficiency standards of a covered residential product every six years. 

When the law was first enacted, DOE had just 13 covered products under its purview, and these timelines may have been more realistic. However, as time has gone on, the number of appliances that DOE is now responsible to regulate has ballooned to nearly 80 different product types! Not surprisingly, this increased workload, in the absence of a corresponding increase in lookback periods, has created continual challenges for the Department relative to keeping up with these statutory deadlines. It may be worth discussing legislation that would increase the six-year and seven-year timeframes discussed above to longer time periods that allows DOE and the regulated community to more thoroughly examine product capabilities and markets.

Another issue in EPCA is relative to how certain terms have been defined, and interpreted, by DOE in the past. For example, in a final energy efficiency rule, the Department must demonstrate that the technologies likely to be required to meet the new, product-specific, energy efficiency thresholds are “technologically feasible.” 

However, exactly what this term means has been a bit of a moving target from presidential administration-to-presidential administration in recent years. Previously, it was understood that DOE would only consider technologies that are currently used in products that are offered for sale in the U.S. market. This interpretation though was recently changed, allowing the Department to consider any technology that is utilized in a functioning product prototype, that may not even be commercially available. The regulatory inconsistency that can result from these two different interpretations is obvious and highlights just one area of EPCA’s existing language that can be clarified for both regulators and the regulated community alike.

While the examples above are far from the only potential corrections that can be made to the nearly 100-page piece of legislation, they do indicate that policymakers may be past time to update EPCA and modify the law in a way that reflects current regulatory and market practices. This is especially true given the importance that EPCA has, and will continue to have, on which types of household appliances are available to our country’s individuals, families and job providers.

If you have any questions about the information in this column, or any other issues related to legislative and regulatory measures impacting our industry, BWC’s Government and Regulatory Affairs team is here to help. Also, if you know of any legislative or regulatory activity in your community or state that would impact our industry, please do not hesitate to contact us at BWCGovReg@bradfordwhite.com.