On August 18, 2020, the Department of Energy (DOE) finalized amendments to its process rule, which governs the decision-making process for selecting energy conservation standards. The revised rule requires DOE to conduct a comparative analysis of the relative benefits and burdens of potential energy conservation standard levels in determining whether a specific energy conservation standard level is economically justified. The rule becomes effective on October 19, 2020.
In January 2020, DOE revised the process rule to establish a new threshold for the amount of energy conservation required to trigger the process of updating standards, which is likely to result in fewer updates in the future.