AHRI outlines recommendations for proposed EPCA reform

ARLINGTON, Virginia, United States, December 2 2025: The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) said it has offered several recommendations to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in advance of the Committee’s consideration of a bill to reform the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA). Making the announcement through a Press Release, AHRI said EPCA underpins the nation’s appliance energy efficiency standards programme. The association said it applauds the effort to reform the 50-year-old statute which it noted has not been amended for nearly 20 years. AHRI said it recommends steps to ensure a more effective and transparent law that takes into account today’s technologies. The association added that its recommendations aim to maintain American manufacturing preeminence and support American job creation while enhancing national security through energy efficiency and grid resilience.

AHRI said it recommends strengthening federal pre-emption to ensure a unified appliance energy policy. The association said it is calling for a single national energy policy that ensures safe, reliable and affordable access to essential heating and cooling products while avoiding regulatory fragmentation. AHRI added that regulatory fragmentation could harm innovation and consumers.

The association said it recommends ensuring regulatory predictability and consumer affordability by maintaining anti-backsliding provisions and added that these provisions provide business certainty to manufacturers and customers. AHRI said they ensure that long-term capital investments are not undermined or stranded and that it supports setting a new minimum 10-year lookback period for evaluating standards. The association said it recommends prohibiting the Department of Energy (DOE) from regulating component parts separately to avoid double regulation and increased costs. AHRI said it recommends ensuring that DOE follows its own Process Rule.

AHRI said it also recommends developing realistic and transparent standards and said it supports enhancing the law’s current requirement that efficiency standards must be economically justified and technologically feasible. The association said the standards must be based on sound analysis that considers product characteristics and attributes important to consumers. AHRI said the standards must ensure that consumers can afford and realise the value of their investment in new innovative products.

The association said it recommends modernising compliance and labelling and added that compliance dates should be based on the date of manufacture to avoid stranded inventory.

AHRI said manufacturers should be empowered to use electronic labelling such as QR codes to modernise consumer information sharing and reduce complexity.

Stephen Yurek, President and CEO, AHRI, said: “Congress has a unique window of opportunity here to enact necessary changes to a successful, but outdated law. As manufacturers committed to innovation, efficiency, and affordability, we want to continue to partner with Congress and with the Department of Energy to ensure a robust, transparent, and affordable efficiency standards process.”