Biden Admin Sets Water Heater Efficiency Rules

The Biden administration on Tuesday finalized new energy efficiency standards for residential hot water heaters, the most significant of several actions it has taken meant to reduce emissions from everyday products.

The Department of Energy estimated the new standards, which will take effect for newly manufactured electric water storage heaters beginning in 2029, will save households an average of between $100 to $200 on their utility bills per year and $1,800 over the lifetime of the appliances.

The rules will also avert an estimated 332 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution from the atmosphere over the next 30 years, DOE officials said.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, officials touted the new efficiency standards as a cost-saving measure to reduce pollution for millions of people and result in energy savings of 17.6 quadrillion British thermal units over the next 30 years, what officials said will be the largest-ever emissions reduction achieved by a single DOE efficiency rule in department history.

“Almost every U.S. household has a water heater, and for too long, outdated energy efficiency standards have led to higher utility bills for families,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters Tuesday.

These rules set separate minimum efficiency levels for different classes of residential water heater models, including electric tank water heaters, gas-fired tank heaters, and tankless models.

DOE is required by Congress to update residential water heater efficiency standards every six years, though the last change was made 13 years ago in 2010. Tuesday’s action drew praise from some environmental and consumer groups, who cheered the news as a long-overdue update.

“The technology for water heaters has advanced dramatically, and the standards have not kept up,” Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, said in a statement. “This is going to move much of the electric market from decades-old technology that costs a lot to run to heat pump units that use less than half as much energy.”

Still, some Republicans in Congress are far less likely to back the new rules, which are likely to spark the ire of some who have also pushed back on DOE’s earlier efficiency standards on other appliances, such as washers and dryers, dishwashers, and other common appliances, some of which were announced earlier this year. Opponents have argued the rules are overly burdensome and restrictive to consumers, who in some cases must pay a higher upfront cost for the new appliances.

Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), who introduced a bill last year to protect against the efficiency standards, criticized DOE’s actions at the time as being part of a “radical environmentalist agenda” that she said seeks to “deny American consumers the choices they deserve.”

Most prominently, Republicans, along with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), launched an effort last year to stop what they argued was an attempt from Biden administration to ban gas stoves, a monthslong public frenzy that began after Consumer Product Safety Commission member Richard Trumka Jr. suggested in an interview that the agency was weighing a ban on gas stoves due to health hazards.

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The blowback forced the head of the CPSC and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to explicitly walk back the suggestion of a ban on gas stoves, but not before Manchin and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) joined forces to introduce legislation to prohibit the CPSC from enacting any ban or regulation on gas stoves.

“I’ve said it before: The federal government doesn’t have any business telling American families how to cook their dinner,” Manchin said in floor remarks last year.