A federal appeals court set aside Biden-era energy efficiency standards for conventional stoves and cooktops after finding that the Department of Energy improperly relied on a direct-final-rule process and failed to withdraw the regulation after states raised objections.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday struck down Biden-era energy efficiency standards for consumer stoves and cooktops, ruling that the Department of Energy improperly attempted to finalize the regulation without following the public process required by law.
In a decision written by Judge Andrew Oldham and joined by Judges Catharina Haynes and James Ho, the court granted a petition for review brought by Mississippi, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
At issue was DOE’s use of a streamlined “Direct Final Rule” procedure to establish new efficiency standards for conventional cooking products.
The states argued that once substantial objections were submitted, the department was required to withdraw the rule and proceed through the ordinary notice-and-comment process.
The Fifth Circuit agreed that the agency could not simply leave the rule in place after objections were raised.
“The Biden Administration proposed numerous regulations to make home appliances more expensive and less useful… Rather than confront that controversy, the previous Administration attempted to dodge it,” Oldham wrote.
The court said the department issued the regulation without providing the type of advance opportunity for public participation required under the circumstances.
“The Biden Administration promulgated a rule without giving the public advance notice or the opportunity to comment on it,” the panel stated.
The dispute also involved DOE’s claim that there was sufficient consensus surrounding the standards.
According to the court, the department relied in part on support from California, Massachusetts and New York while states challenging the regulation argued that their opposition had effectively been excluded from the agency’s assessment.
Oldham rejected the notion that those three states could be treated as representative of the country as a whole, describing that characterization as “the understatement of the day.”
Technical concerns surrounding the rule were also part of the dispute.
The court highlighted objections that moving manufacturers away from linear power supplies and toward more complicated switching power supplies could reduce the service life of kitchen stoves, increase repair costs and generate additional waste.
The panel also rejected DOE’s argument that challengers forfeited their ability to object by waiting until the formal comment period had concluded.
Oldham said the department could not use the direct-final-rule process to sidestep objections that Congress required it to consider.
“What the Department could not do was gloss over public outcry, allow the public to file after-the-fact comments, and then ignore those comments in violation of Congress’s plain dictates,” Oldham wrote.
The ruling sets aside the challenged efficiency standards and represents a legal defeat for the Biden-era approach to regulating conventional cooking appliances, with the Fifth Circuit concluding that DOE’s procedural handling of the rule did not comply with statutory requirements.
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