Biden Widens War on Home Appliances With New Regulations Requiring Costly New Gas Furnaces

President Biden’s campaign to force Americans to make costly upgrades to an array of home appliances in the interest of combating climate change has settled on a new target — gas-powered home heating furnaces.The Department of Energy announced Friday that, beginning in 2028, all new gas furnaces installed in American homes will need to be more energy efficient, primarily via the use of condenser technology that captures excess heat from a furnace’s exhaust.The administration says the new standards will cut household utility costs across the country by some $1.5 annually and reduce carbon and methane emissions by hundreds of million of metric tons over the next 30 years. The new units will be required to have a fuel efficiency rating of above 95 percent, a target that would effectively end the sale of between 40 and 60 percent of furnaces currently on the market.“Today’s measure, along with this Administration’s past and planned energy efficiency actions, underscores President Biden’s commitment to save Americans money and deliver healthier communities,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said. She said that with the new rules, the Biden administration has now raised efficiency standards on no less than 24 different categories — everything from ceiling fans and dishwashers to gas stoves and water heaters — of products available to American consumers.Currently, homeowners have the option of opting for lower-cost, less-efficient models that are significantly less expensive than the higher-efficiency ones but generate higher monthly bills. By some estimates, less-efficient models cost between $500 and $1500 plus installation costs. The higher-efficiency models run between $2000 and $6000 each, but reduce monthly bills slightly.A vice president at the American Gas Association, Richard Meyer, told Fox News that homeowners will likely face some sticker shock when they price out the new appliances.“They’re going to have to, in many cases, install new equipment to exhaust gas out of their home,” he said. “These higher efficiency units, or so-called condensing units — a lot of consumers have them in their home, but a lot of consumers don’t. So this rule would require additional retrofits for a lot of consumers. And those retrofits can be extremely cost prohibitive.”Facing a public increasingly skeptical about its dire warning about climate change — the Treasury Department released a report Friday warning that millions of Americans in half of the country’s counties face skyrocketing costs associated with “climate hazards” — the Biden administration has been unable to get Congress to act on the issue, so it has turned to the regulatory regime to further its climate agenda.Mr. Biden attempted to name a top lieutenant of Ms. Granholm, Jeff Marootian, to be assistant secretary of energy, but his nomination was blocked by Senator Manchin, the moderate Democrat from West Virginia, because of the nominee’s efforts to curtail the use of gas stoves. Within days of his name being withdrawn, Mr. Marootian was instead named as head of the energy department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy that is in charge of regulating home appliances. The latter position does not require Senate confirmation.Testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Ben Lieberman, said the raft of new regulations out of Mr. Biden’s energy department long ago reached the point of overregulation and is now doing more harm than good for consumers.“Every one of these regulations is a bad deal for consumers,” Mr. Lieberman said. “Beyond raising the purchase price and compromising the quality of appliances, these rules restrain consumer choice.”Mr. Liberman suggested that Congress should pass legislation forcing the Department of Energy to end its appliance efficiency standards altogether or at the very least limit the department’s role in them so that any proposed regulations must be approved by Congress before they are enforced. He described the program as a “solution in search of a problem” and said ending it would have “absolutely no downside for consumers.”“Federal regulations only serve to force the politically-correct option on every consumer, whether they like it or not,” Mr. Lieberman said. “Congress should clarify that the appliance standards program cannot be used as a climate policy tool, and that any environmental agenda cannot take precedence over the best interests of consumers.”

Biden Widens War on Home Appliances With New Regulations Requiring Costly New Gas Furnaces

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