Department of Energy July 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice announces receipt of and publishes Whirlpool Corporation's (Whirlpool's) Petition for Waiver (hereafter, ``Petition'') from parts of the Department of Energy (DOE) test procedure for determining the energy consumption of electric refrigerators and refrigerator-freezers. The waiver request pertains to Whirlpool's specified French door bottom-mounted residential refrigerators and refrigerator-freezers, a product line that utilizes a control logic that changes the wattage of the anti-sweat heaters based upon the ambient relative humidity conditions in order to prevent condensation. The existing test procedure does not take humidity or adaptive control technology into account. Therefore, Whirlpool has suggested an alternate test procedure that takes adaptive control technology into account when measuring energy consumption. DOE is soliciting comments, data, and information concerning Whirlpool's Petition and the suggested alternate test procedure.

DOE and BLM (the Agencies) are extending the comment period for public scoping for the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement to Evaluate Solar Energy Development and have added three meetings to the previously announced public scoping meeting schedule.

Western Area Power Administration (Western), a Federal power marketing agency of the Department of Energy, is publishing this response to letters of interest and comments resulting from Western's Notice of Request for Letters of Interest in the Federal Register (72 FR 34679), dated June 25, 2007. The notice provided an opportunity for potential new eligible customers to indicate an interest in receiving an allocation of Federal power, and for the public to comment on appropriate purposes for the Loveland Area Projects (LAP) Post-2009 proposed resource pool. This Federal Register notice summarizes the letters of interest and comments received by Western's Rocky Mountain Region (RMR), and Western's plans to proceed with Post-2009 resource pool allocations.

On June 6, 2008, the Department of Energy (DOE) published a notice of public meeting and availability of the Framework Document to the Federal Register (73 FR 32243) to announce to the public that DOE was beginning its rulemaking activities for residential central air conditioners and heat pumps. The notice of availability of the Framework document announced the closing date for receiving public comments would be July 7, 2008. Meeting attendees collectively requested that the comment period be extended to allow additional time to understand the document and prepare written comments. The Department agrees to this extension of the comment period and will extend the close of the comment period to 4:30 p.m. (EDT) July 31, 2008. The Department does not foresee that this extension will affect the publication due dates for any subsequent documentation associated with this rule or any associated public meetings. The Framework document is written to inform stakeholders and to facilitate explanation of DOE's rulemaking process. It details the analytical approach and identifies several issues on which DOE is particularly interested in receiving comment. The Department of Energy is initiating the rulemaking and data collection process to consider establishing amended energy conservation standards for residential central air conditioners and heat pumps. DOE welcomes written comments from the public on this rulemaking. A copy of the Framework Document is available at: https://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/appliance_ standards/residential/central_ac_hp.html.

Section 132 of Public Law 109-103 (2005) authorized and directed the Secretary of the Army to implement alternatives BS-3 and NF-7, as described in the White River Minimum Flows Reallocation Study Report, Arkansas and Missouri, dated July 2004. The law states that the Administrator, Southwestern Power Administration (Southwestern), shall determine any impacts on electric energy and capacity generated at Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Project No. 2221 caused by the storage reallocation at Bull Shoals Lake. Further, the licensee of Project No. 2221 shall be fully compensated by the Corps of Engineers for those impacts on the basis of the present value of the estimated future lifetime replacement costs of the electrical energy and capacity at the time of implementation of the White River Minimum Flows project. The law also states that losses to the Federal hydropower purpose of the Bull Shoals and Norfork Projects shall be offset by a reduction in the costs allocated to the Federal hydropower purpose. Further, such reduction shall be determined by the Administrator of Southwestern on the basis of the present value of the estimated future lifetime replacement cost of the electrical energy and capacity at the time of implementation of the White River Minimum Flows project. Southwestern's draft determination was published by Federal Register Notice (73 FR 6717) dated February 5, 2008. Written comments were invited through March 6, 2008. All public comments received were considered, and Southwestern's draft determination was revised as necessary to incorporate the public comments. Since there were significant changes to Southwestern's draft determination, due in part to public comments received supporting higher energy values, Southwestern is publishing a proposed determination for public review and comment prior to its final determination. Assuming a January 1, 2011, date of implementation for the White River Minimum Flows project, Southwestern's proposed determination results in a present value for the estimated future lifetime replacement costs of the electrical energy and capacity at FERC Project No. 2221 of $33,935,100. Southwestern's proposed determination results in a present value for the estimated future lifetime replacement costs of the electrical energy and capacity for Federal hydropower of $86,712,100.