Home Appliance Protection and Affordability Act

What this does

The bill rewrites how the Department of Energy may set appliance energy conservation standards under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, raising the bar the Secretary must clear before issuing any new or amended standard. The Secretary may not adopt a standard unless it is technologically feasible and economically justified, and a standard counts as economically justified only if the energy and water savings a consumer earns in the first three years exceed any increase in purchase, installation, maintenance, disposal, and replacement costs. A standard must also achieve at least a 0.3 quad reduction in site energy over 30 years or at least a 10 percent cut in the product's energy or water use. In weighing economic justification the Secretary must prioritize consumers, may not count estimates of the social costs or benefits of greenhouse gas emissions, and must run a quantitative economic analysis with a 60-day comment period. Before setting a standard the Secretary must publicly disclose any meeting held in the prior five years with entities that have ties to the People's Republic of China or the Chinese Communist Party, have advocated to limit energy use, and have sought or received federal funds. The bill lets petitioners ask DOE to revoke standards, not just amend them, and requires action within 180 days on a granted revocation petition. It bars any new or amended standard for distribution transformers going forward, and separately confirms the Secretary's authority to set design and performance standards for clothes washers and dishwashers.