Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office May 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document advises the public that a class deviation to the Department of Energy (DOE) Financial Assistance Rules, particularly the regulations that deal with programmatic changes, and DOE policies and procedures on the use of warranted Contracting Officers to administer financial assistance agreements, has been approved for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program. This class deviation gives authority to EECBG Program Managers to approve the following processes for financial assistance agreements made using Recovery Act funding to State, city, county, and Tribal recipients in support of the formula EECBG program: Administer financial assistance awards for approval of programmatic changes under the Changes section of the Financial Assistance Rules; review of subsequent budget submittals for consistency with the requirements of Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Cost Principles for State, Local and Indian Tribal Governments (questions on allowability, allocability and reasonableness of budgets and individual cost elements will be forwarded to the Contracting Officer for adjudication), remove and/or modify National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) restrictions, including guidance on NEPA requirements; and amend agreements for administrative activities such as lifting conditions based on approval of Strategies. The class deviation does not apply to non-formula awards.

This notice publishes DOE's Decision and Order in Case No. WAV-0140, which denies a waiver to PB Heat, LLC (PB) from the existing DOE residential furnace and boiler test procedure. This Decision and Order pertains to PB's PO-50, PO-60, PO-63, and PO-73 models of oil- fired boilers. DOE previously published the PB Petition for Waiver and solicited comments, data, and information regarding the petition, which requested permission to publish a Low Water Temperature Seasonal Efficiency (LWTSE) value, conducted under an alternative industry test procedure, in addition to the mandatory Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) value required under DOE's energy conservation standards. PB's petition suggested that testing and reporting of the AFUE value alone is not representative of its basic models' true energy consumption characteristics. DOE denies PB's Petition for Waiver for the reasons set forth below. Because a waiver is not appropriate, DOE cannot prescribe an alternative test procedure. However, the Decision and Order clarifies that it is permissible for a manufacturer to conduct LWTSE testing and to present such results in product literature. It is noted that the Energy Guide label used for certification and consumer information purposes can only present information generated under the DOE test procedure, as required under applicable Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations. When making such supplemental statements in the product literature, manufacturers must continue to conduct, report, and fairly disclose the AFUE test results generated under the DOE test procedures, and to use those AFUE results when making representations as to the basic model's energy efficiency. Supplemental statements regarding LWTSE must fairly disclose the results of such testing and may not mislead the consumer about the relevance of the required AFUE value. For example, DOE suggests any manufacturer that wishes to show the LWTSE values in addition to the AFUE value should make clear the differences between the two tests, including the different operating characteristics and conditions, for consumers.