NEMA Commends House Passage of Common-Sense Legislation to Create Market Certainty for Manufacturers and Protect Consumer Choice

ARLINGTON, Va. - The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) today applauds the House for passing the bipartisan Home Appliance Protection and Affordability Act (H.R. 4626). As manufacturers of consumer appliances, advanced industrial equipment, and products that power our world, we commend Rep. Allen (R-GA) and lawmakers for acting to replace an outdated, arbitrary, and lengthy rulemaking process with a common-sense approach for efficiency standards.

The 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) currently requires the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to review equipment efficiency standards every six years, regardless of whether meaningful additional energy savings are achievable or economically justified. H.R. 4626 amends this burdensome rulemaking cycle that consumes government and industry resources, causes regulatory uncertainty, and discourages long-term investment in domestic manufacturing.

"This legislation provides much needed reforms to federal efficiency regulations by combining a common-sense approach with outcomes-based policy," said NEMA President and CEO Debra Phillips. "Removing the arbitrary six-year review mandate incentivizes electrical manufacturers to make research, development, and production investment decisions in alignment with their customers' needs. We thank Congress for removing distribution transformers from the efficiency standards process after achieving near maximum efficiency - an important step that will help manufacturers meet rapidly growing demand while supporting affordability and reliability."

Requiring repeated reviews for products already approaching maximum achievable efficiency increases costs and uncertainty while delivering little to no real efficiency results. For example, distribution transformers, critical grid equipment that today face long lead times, already operate at extremely high efficiency levels between 97.5% and 99.5%, meaning future efficiency gains will yield marginal results at best.

NEMA, which represents diverse, mission-critical sectors of the American economy, thank the House for taking this critical step toward regulatory certainty and market stability.

Looking forward, NEMA urges the Senate to proceed with legislation that preserves the government's ability to pursue new efficiency standards when economically justified and technically feasible while eliminating procedural mandates that create uncertainty and discourage long-term investment in energy infrastructure.

Now, 50 years after EPCA was enacted, it is time to update this framework to reflect the significant equipment efficiency gains manufacturers have already achieved and enable them to invest in meeting new electricity demand, expanding domestic production capacity, and strengthening supply chains.

###

About NEMA

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) represents over 300 electrical equipment manufacturers that make safe, reliable, and efficient products and technologies that power, connect, and light our world. Together, our members contribute a full 1% of U.S. GDP and directly provide over 580,000 American jobs, adding more than $330 billion to the U.S. economy. Learn more at makeitelectric.org

Press contact: [email protected]