Key Takeaways
- What Happened? Even as the Trump administration presses forward with an aggressive deregulatory agenda for appliance efficiency standards, two recent developments provide evidence that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will retain a significant role in appliance efficiency and enforcement going forward. First, after months of uncertainty regarding whether the Energy Star Program would survive, Congress provided $33 million to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the Program, and DOE and EPA executed a new Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) designating DOE as the lead federal agency for the Energy Star Program. Second, DOE has filed suit in federal court to enforce a Biden-era civil penalty for violations of federal certification requirements and efficiency standards.
- Who is Impacted? Manufacturers, importers, and retailers of household appliances, electronics, lighting, and plumbing equipment.
- What Does It Mean? Despite the administration’s deregulatory approach, regulated businesses should not assume that the federal appliance efficiency requirements are going away or will not be enforced. Imported products may face heightened regulatory scrutiny, as the Administration signals it is receptive to American manufacturers’ concerns about noncompliance and unfair competition.
DOE Takes Over as Lead Agency for Energy Star
Energy Star is a voluntary labeling Program that encourages the design and adoption of energy-efficient products and the reduction in energy consumption. Since Energy Star’s introduction in 1992 under the George H.W. Bush administration, the Program claims to have saved American households and businesses over $500 billion in energy costs.
Historically, EPA has taken the lead role in administering the Program, in partnership with DOE. DOE’s role with the Energy Star Program was first established through a 1996 Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) with EPA. Since then, DOE has partnered with EPA to provide technical support to EPA, including developing test procedures and performance metrics. The MOA—which runs for ten years—reverses that arrangement, placing DOE as the lead agency for the Program, “in consultation with other Federal agencies as needed, including EPA and the Small Business Administration.” The MOA further requires DOE and EPA to “initiate the orderly transition of primary management” of the Program, and develop a transition plan within 90 days covering partnership agreements, trademarks, IT systems, and databases, but is otherwise sparse on details about what EPA’s ongoing role, if any, will be with the Program.
This MOA comes less than a year after the Trump administration signaled plans to eliminate the Program—which resulted in some industry pushback—and just months after Congress passed and President Trump signed legislation providing EPA with $33 million for the Program. The MOA does not explain whether or how this recently appropriated EPA funding for Energy Star will be redirected as DOE assumes lead agency responsibility.
DOE’s role as the lead agency is not without justification: DOE already develops the test procedures on which Energy Star specifications rely and administers mandatory efficiency standards, certification requirements, and enforcement for many of the same categories of products as Energy Star. The move could therefore reflect an effort to consolidate related functions in a single agency. The timing of the MOA—only weeks after Congress ensured continued EPA funding to run the Program—remains unusual. The MOA leaves unanswered whether and how Energy Star funding will be transferred from EPA to DOE.
DOE Sues Friedrich in Federal Court for EPCA Violations
After 14 months with little public evidence that the Department is enforcing its mandatory appliance efficiency program, on March 3, 2026, DOE filed a complaint against Friedrich Air Conditioning LLC (“Friedrich”) in federal court to do just that. According to the complaint, in February 2024, DOE assessed a civil penalty against the company for violating Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) testing and certification requirements for central air conditioners and heat pumps (CAC/HP). Friedrich is an American-based company with manufacturing facilities in Mexico. According to the complaint, between 2019 and 2023, Friedrich distributed CAC/HPs without first testing them in accordance with the applicable CAC/HP test procedures and without first certifying that the CAC/HPs met the applicable energy conservation standard. EPCA permits parties to proceed before either an Administrative Law Judge in the Department’s Office of Hearings and Appeals or in federal court; Friedrich elected the latter and declined to pay the penalty, ultimately resulting in DOE’s March 3 complaint to enforce the penalty.
The complaint is noteworthy for several reasons.
- First, DOE enforcement actions under EPCA rarely result in federal court litigation under any administration, and have been particularly rare in President Trump’s first and second terms. Indeed, there is no public evidence that the Trump administration has initiated any enforcement actions under EPCA in the past fourteen months.
- Second, the complaint comes at a time when the Trump administration is moving forward with a large-scale rollback of DOE’s federal appliance efficiency regulations.
- Third, DOE frames the lawsuit as prompted by complaints from American manufacturers and as an effort to ensure that those manufacturers are not at a competitive disadvantage with respect to foreign companies importing allegedly noncompliant products.
A New Approach to Appliance Efficiency Enforcement?
The Biden administration appeared to recognize that appliance efficiency enforcement could be a tool to level the playing field between American and foreign manufacturers. Indeed, one of DOE’s last actions before President Trump took office was to finalize a record-breaking $25 million penalty against a China-based manufacturer of compact refrigerator freezers. Time will tell whether this federal lawsuit by the Trump administration is an outlier or an inflection point in the administration’s approach to appliance efficiency enforcement.
