Department of Energy March 29, 2021 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On February 24, 2021, President Biden issued an Executive order directing several Federal agency actions to secure and strengthen America's supply chains. One of these directions is for the Secretary of Energy to submit, within 100 days, a report to the President identifying risks in the high-capacity batteries, including electric- vehicle batteries, supply chain and policy recommendations to address these risks. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE or Department) invites public comment on its Request for Information (RFI) number DE-FOA- 0002502 regarding the Risks in the High-Capacity Batteries, including Electric Vehicle Batteries Supply Chain.

On June 11, 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy (``DOE'') issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (``NOPR'') to amend the test procedure for room air conditioners (``room ACs''). That proposed rulemaking serves as the basis for the final rule. Specifically, this final rule adopts the following updates to the test procedure for room ACs at appendix F: Incorporate by reference current versions of applicable industry standards; establish test provisions to measure energy use of variable-speed room ACs during a representative average use cycle; update definitions to define key terms and support provisions for testing variable-speed room ACs; and incorporate specifications and minor corrections to improve the test procedure repeatability, reproducibility, and overall readability. This final rule does not modify the test procedures for single-speed room ACs and does not affect the measured energy use for these models. The provisions established to measure energy use of variable-speed room ACs will improve the representativeness of the measured energy use of these models.