President Joe Biden‘s administration is under fire for a rule to restrict gas furnaces, and an energy group is seeking to challenge the new regulations in court.
The Department of Energy issued a rule in September to take effect in late 2028 that would require nonweatherized gas furnaces in homes to have an “annual fuel utilization efficiency” of 95%. The American Gas Association filed a legal challenge to the rule on Monday, with President and CEO Karen Harbert saying the association’s prior concerns to the department had been “summarily ignored.”
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“AGA has attempted to work with the Department of Energy to address the rule’s profound impacts on consumers and homeowners with a solutions-oriented approach to energy conservation that protects consumers and ensures continued availability of low-cost, low-emission natural gas furnaces. Unfortunately, our 114 pages of comments have been summarily ignored,” Harbert said in a statement.
“This ruling from DOE will push American families with natural gas heat into a corner — when their furnace goes out, they’ll be forced to choose between retrofitting for electric with the increased month-to-month utility bills that entails or engaging in a costly and time-consuming renovation to retrofit their home for a completely different type of natural gas furnace. Either way, American families and businesses will be saddled with increased costs with little environmental gain,” Harbert added.
The AGA says that the rule would ban the sale of noncondensing gas furnaces and estimates that the rule would affect 55% of households.
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The rule affecting gas furnaces comes months after the Biden administration issued emissions rules that would severely restrict gas stoves, making at least half of stove models in the United States ineligible for repurchase if they were in stores today.
The backlash to the rule targeting gas stoves caused the House of Representatives to pass the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, which would prevent the Consumer Product Safety Commission from using federal funds to enforce the rule.
