After Christmas, Team Biden worked to give a point of amazement for its sad, meaningless climate agenda, completing a statute that sets new efficiency standards for tankless water heaters and effectively eliminates the lowest-priced versions of these water heaters. [emphasis, links added]
The statute is completed, just like a dying government going out, it is the Congressional Review Act [CRA] Designed to solve. The bill allows Congress and the president to set the rules recently established.
In this case, there are more stories to the story that should stop anyone who cares about American work.
The National Electrical Appliances and Energy Protection Act, approved in 1987, requires household appliances to meet efficiency standards and are regularly reviewed by the Ministry of Energy and updated when needed.
The Ministry of Energy begins such a review of water heaters in 2021.
The process is more complicated than you think. There are different kinds of water heaters: traditional tank heaters that heat and store 30 to 80 gallons of water and tankless water heaters that heat water through pipes.
For whatever reason, Biden’s team has released two regulations for water heaters: new standards for traditional tank water heaters in May, and tankless water heaters standards for December 26.
Only the standard for tankless water heaters is within the time frame set by the CRA and is used to review the new rules. result, Only these standards are subject to Congress scrutiny.
In a rational world, when two deal with water heaters, Congress can only disapprove of one of these rules, enough to kill the idea.
Who would bend enough to need different regulations on the same equipment? Unfortunately, Congress is not always rational.
There is also an unhappy twist in the story. About 80% of the water heaters sold in the United States each year are traditional tank heaters produced by American companies. Almost all tankless water heaters are made in foreign countries, mainly in Japan, South Korea and China.
This means that if Congress continues to resolve disapproval, then U.S.-made water heaters will be subject to new regulations, while major imported water heaters will not.
Tankless water heaters can be permanently exempt from regulations because the CRA excludes any attempt to impose “basically the same” regulations that Congress rejects.
We can all agree that the most affordable and popular equipment (equipped in the United States) in decades has been cumbersome. It is not wise to exempt foreign-made products at all, nor to align with any vision of putting American companies, American workers and American families.
I am a big fan of the CRA and I was lucky enough to work when I went through the legislative process in 1996.
However, CRA is the wrong tool here, which will lead to bad results for U.S. companies and workers. In this case, Congress should not do anything.
Federal courts have filed a lawsuit to invalidate the tankless water heater rule. The government should resolve the case and send the rules back to the Ministry of Energy for further review. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he hopes the rule is returned to him so that it can be resolved.
Once the Department of Energy receives the rule, it could make the Biden team's rules, tanks and tankless water heaters the same and protect U.S. manufacturing, consumer choices and workers.
Reading break in Washington Times
