AHAM supports practical, lasting changes to the Federal Appliance Standards Program and encourages changes to modernize the underlying law, known as the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA).
Meaningful changes to EPCA will:
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Safeguard consumer choice and affordability;
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Preserve appliance features and performance; and
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Continue a national marketplace.
After almost 40 years of continuous improvements in appliance energy and water efficiency, many appliances operate at or near peak energy efficiency. The average clothes washers built today use nearly 78% less energy than those built in 1992, while their capacity has increased by 60%. The average refrigerator built today uses nearly 58% less energy than those built in 1980, while their capacity has increased by nearly 32%.*
Absent leaps in technology, meaningful additional energy savings are unlikely without sacrificing features, performance, or choice. For example, clothes washers have been subject to eight revisions since the program began. Because some energy and water will always be needed to wash and clean clothes effectively, the opportunity to save additional water and energy is inevitably declining.
The home appliance industry is asking:
Congress:
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Stop never-ending increases in efficiency standards
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Ensure future standards will not reduce product features, performance, or choice by requiring DOE to more fully consider the impact of possible standards on product users.
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Continue to prevent a patchwork of state standards that would destroy the national marketplace for home appliances and make states de facto national regulators and reduce consumer choice.
DOE:
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Ensure its standards-setting process is transparent and follow its own rules.
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Eliminate redundant and unnecessary reporting and certification.
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Revise its analytical framework for establishing and amending energy standards.
Congress, DOE, and EPA:
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Maintain, with changes, the ENERGY STAR program for home appliances.
These changes will protect consumer choice, features, and performance; decrease overly burdensome regulation; and help prevent states from becoming
de facto standards setters.
Working together, we can create sound policies that will allow manufacturers to deliver on our promise: to design and sell modern appliances that allow families to put dinner on the table, keep their homes clean, comfortable and safe.
In 2023, AHAM testified before the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee of the US House of Representatives. AHAM's testimony can be read here.
