CEI Leads Coalition Letter to Congress on Tankless Water Heaters

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Dear 119th Congress:

The Biden administration gave us many bad appliance regulations, but worst of all may have been its last-minute crackdown on gas-fired instantaneous (tankless) water heaters. To undo this crackdown, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) has introduced H.J. Res. 20 – “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Energy relating to ‘Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Gas-fired Instantaneous Water Heaters’”. The undersigned organizations strongly urge all members to support it.

Tankless water heaters provide hot water as needed and thus do not require a storage tank. Though less common than conventional tank storage water heaters, some consumers prefer them for their smaller size and generally lower operating costs. Unfortunately, the Biden Department of Energy (DOE) issued standards in December, 2024 for tankless water heaters that effectively outlaw them by making them prohibitively expensive.

DOE itself estimated that its new standards would raise the cost of compliant water heaters by $231. This is bad enough but at least one outside estimate is nearly twice that amount. H.J.Res.20 would rescind this harmful rule and thus keep the tankless water heater option available and affordable for those homeowners who prefer it.

It should be noted that some manufacturers of water heater types relatively unaffected by the rule had actively lobbied the Biden administration for these costly restrictions, and they now are lobbying against H.J. Res.20. However, it is not the proper role of federal regulators to pick winners and losers and hand an advantage to some manufacturers at the expense of others, especially when consumers pay the price in the form of reduced choices and potentially higher prices. For the above reasons, the undersigned organizations commend Rep. Palmer for introducing this important resolution and again urge members to vote for the interests of consumers and support H.J.Res.20.

Sincerely,

Ben Lieberman

Senior Fellow

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Saulius “Saul” Anuzis

President

American Association of Senior Citizens

Phil Kerpen

President

American Commitment

Kristen Walker

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CEI Leads Coalition Letter to Congress on Tankless Water Heaters