CEI Comments on DOE’s Proposed Appliance Standards Process Rule

I. Introduction

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is a policy and analysis organization committed to advancing the principles of free markets and limited government. For over 20 years, we have participated in rulemakings conducted by Department of Energy (DOE) regarding energy conservation standards for home appliances. Most recently, we have submitted comments for proposed DOE rules targeting residential furnaces, stoves, washing machines, light bulbs, dishwashers, and water heaters.¹ Our focus has been on ensuring that the consumer protections built into the underlying statute, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA), are given full weight by the agency and that the option of declining to regulate is taken when appropriate.

In our view, these consumer protections have frequently been downplayed or ignored by the agency when setting excessively stringent – if not downright harmful – appliance efficiency standards. This was particularly true during the Biden administration, during which DOE used the appliance standards program to aggressively pursue climate change-related goals rather than prioritize the best interests of consumers as required by law. As discussed in CEI’s comments, many of these appliance standards are likely to harm consumers by imposing costs in excess of any energy savings, while others threaten product choice, features, performance, and/or reliability. Overall, these proposed rules made for both bad policy and bad law, but most of them were finalized.

Fortunately, Congress has since used the Congressional Review Act to strike down some of the most anti-consumer of these appliance regulations, such as the one targeting gas-fired instantaneous water heaters.² Other rules have been challenged in federal court, and the U.S. Supreme Court recently vacated a lower court decision upholding an ill-advised 2023 furnace standard.³

These legislative and judicial efforts to reverse bad DOE appliance standards are commendable, but it is much better to prevent such overreaching rules from being set in the first place. That is the goal of the proposed rule at issue here. CEI strongly supports these efforts.

II. History of EPCA and Federal Appliance Standards

EPCA authorizes DOE to promulgate energy conservation standards for most home appliances. Such standards are to be set so as to “achieve the maximum improvement in energy efficiency…which the Secretary determines is technologically feasible and economically justified.”⁴ The statute also requires any standards to be reviewed every six years, during which the agency determines whether or not they need to be made more stringent.

EPCA does not prioritize efficiency above all else in the standards-setting process. Instead, the statute contains a number of provisions protecting consumers from excessively stringent standards that may do more harm than good. In addition to the balancing of costs and benefits when determining whether a standard is economically justified, the statute also includes explicit prohibitions on standards that sacrifice any desired product features or do not result in significant conservation of energy.

Nonetheless, most appliances have been subjected to multiple rounds of successively tighter standards over the years, the latest of which arguably violates these consumer protections. For example, the Biden administration finalized the fifth standard for dishwashers, and the seventh for washing machines, even though both products have been regulated well past the point of any appreciable marginal efficiency benefits that are economically justified relative to the costs.⁵ Many have also experienced adverse effects on choice, features, performance, and reliability.⁶

The Biden administration also set a new standard for electric water heaters that would raise the installed cost by a DOE-estimated $953 when it comes into effect in 2029.⁷ Other analyses estimate costs several times higher than the agency estimate.⁸ It also set the first-ever regulation for stoves, despite previous agency determinations that stoves use too little energy to justify regulation under the statute.⁹ The next light bulb rule will nearly double prices when it takes effect in 2028.¹⁰

The list goes on of appliances that have been regulated and re-regulated beyond all ration and with no end in sight. The consumer protections built into EPCA that should have imposed regulatory stopping points have often been sidestepped, evidence of a DOE tendency towards appliance overregulation.

Indeed, as far back as the 1990s there was the recognition that excessive appliance regulation was becoming a problem. In 1996, the Clinton administration DOE finalized a series of process reforms that would apply to future appliance rulemakings.¹¹ These included a more thorough analysis of the costs and benefits of each proposed rule, including potentially disproportionate adverse effects on consumer subgroups such as low-income and senior households. It also encouraged the consideration of non-regulatory approaches in lieu of regulations. However, compliance with these reforms was still left largely to the discretion of the agency.

In the decades since, a pattern has emerged where a Republican administration would take a much more cautious approach to new appliance regulations (and often face litigation for doing so), followed by a Democratic administration that tried to make up for lost time with a very aggressive regulatory agenda.

This back and forth also included an effort during the first Trump administration to expand upon the Clinton-era DOE process reforms and make them binding on the agency.¹² The Biden administration subsequently revoked most of these changes and added several new ones as it embarked on a very extensive four years of appliance regulation.¹³ The proposed rule here would revert to the first Trump administration process reforms while adding other useful measures, all to ensure that future rulemakings fall within the constraints of EPCA.

III. The Proposed Rule Includes Several Protections Against Unwarranted Appliance Rules

Legislative reform to EPCA is highly advisable, and indeed repeal of the program should be on the table given the many regulatory excesses and their adverse consequences for the American people. Still, the fault does not lie entirely with EPCA, and in fact the statute contains several sensible guardrails that should have prevented the most regrettable rules. The problem lies with DOE’s past failures to give proper consideration to these consumer protections. The proposed rule here provides specific implementation details for these provisions so that they cannot be so easily sidestepped or ignored in future appliance efficiency rulemakings.

A. Significant Conservation of Energy

In addition to the requirements that a new standard be economically justified and technologically feasible, EPCA explicitly prohibits any rule that the Secretary determines “will not result in significant conservation of energy.”¹⁴ This consumer protection prevents appliance efficiency standards that risk being more trouble than they are worth, especially given that these standards nearly always raise purchase prices and/or installation costs.

Unfortunately, the statute does not specify what it means by significant conservation of energy, and the agency has on several occasions defined it downward to near meaninglessness in order to promulgate appliance rules. The proposed rule mentions microwave ovens and ceiling fan light kits as examples of such regulatory overreach, but the most egregious example occurred in 2024 with the agency’s first-ever rule targeting stoves. According to the agency, the rule is estimated to save $3.09 over the 14.5 year average lifespan of a gas cooktop.¹⁵ This works out to about 21 cents per year – tantamount to writing the significant conservation requirement out of the statute. Note that a federal court recently remanded this rule to the agency for reconsideration, but on procedural grounds unrelated to the significance of the energy savings.¹⁶

In the stove rule as well as others promulgated under the Biden administration, DOE buttressed its case for significant conservation of energy by taking into consideration the agency’s claimed environmental and public health benefits, including climate change-related benefits. However, the statute specifically defines energy use as “the quantity of energy directly consumed by a consumer product at point of use,” and this is the relevant definition from which the significance of energy savings should be assessed.¹⁷ Based on this definition as well as many other provisions throughout the statute that focus on direct consumer effects, the agency’s inclusion in many rulemakings of “the need to confront the global climate crisis” as a factor in determining the significance of the energy savings cannot rescue rules for which the direct consumer savings are insignificant.¹⁸

There is an increasing risk of future rules delivering insignificant energy savings given that most major home appliances have already been subjected to three or more rounds of successively tighter standards. Thus, the marginal savings from additional rounds of standards are increasingly likely to be insignificant. Yet, we have seen in many past instances a zeal to regulate and re-regulate with no real end in sight, despite existing rules being sufficient to comply with EPCA.

That is why CEI strongly supports the proposal rule’s provisions to quantify significant conservation of energy by creating specific minimum levels of energy savings. The proposal calls for at least a 10 percent improvement in efficiency over the existing standard or a total estimated energy savings of at least 2 quadrillion British Thermal Units (btus) over 30 years. If anything, these modest energy use floors should be made higher.

Far from changing EPCA, these provisions simply quantify the requirement already in the statute. In contrast, it was the agency under the Biden administration that arguably violated the statutory language by interpreting significant conservation of energy with no real metrics but a willingness to define it as downward as necessary to promulgate additional rules.

EPCA’s statutory intent is both clear and sensible, as is the proposed rule’s quantification of it. There is no appreciable cost to consumers of foregoing efficiency rules with negligible savings, and it heads off any agency proclivities toward regulation for its own sake. Nor does it harm consumer choice, since consumers who want ultra-efficient appliances are always free to choose them, with or without a standard in place. Manufacturers of virtually every appliance category produce and sell models that go well beyond what current efficiency rules require. And, since these rules come under periodic review, so will the determination of whether they would provide significant savings.

Recent Supreme Court precedent limiting agency discretion in statutory interpretation provides further support for the proposed rule’s reasonable application of EPCA.¹⁹ In past rulemakings, the agency has stated that it defines significant conservation of energy on a “case-by-case basis,” under which it frequently made an affirmative finding no matter how miniscule the actual savings for consumers.²⁰ Doing so strains this statutory requirement to the point of effectively ignoring it. Here, in contrast, the proposed rule would provide reasonable metrics that logically flow from the statutory language and are an accurate extension of Congressional intent.

B. Economic Justification

EPCA requires that every appliance standard must be economically justified. This requires that “the benefits of the standard exceed its burdens.”²¹ Among the seven factors to be applied by the agency in determining whether an appliance standard is economically justified is “the economic impact of the standard on the manufacturers and on the consumers,” “the savings in operating costs throughout the estimated average life of the covered product in the type (or class) compared to any increase in the price of, or in the initial charges for, or maintenance expenses of, the covered products which are likely to result from the imposition of the standard,” “the total projected amount of energy, or as applicable, water, savings likely to result directly from the imposition of the standard, and “any lessening of the utility or the performance of the covered products likely to result from the imposition of the standard.”²²

The statute also states that “if the Secretary finds that the additional cost to the consumer of purchasing a product complying with an energy conservation standard level will be less than three times the value of the energy, and as applicable, water, savings during the first year that the consumer will receive as a result of the standard, as calculated under the applicable test procedure, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that such standard level is economically justified.” This so-called payback provision – essentially that the increased up-front cost of a standard should be earned back in the form of energy and water savings within three years – is itself nonbinding and not a bright line test that must be met in determining economic justification. Nonetheless, it provides a good sense of the balance of costs and benefits anticipated by Congress that may inform the other above-mentioned criteria for economic justification.

At this point, most major home appliances already have been subjected to three or more progressively tighter standards over the years, each of which was determined to meet the criteria for economic justification. Thus, it stands to reason that, absent dramatic technological advances, the marginal savings from additional standards would struggle to be justified against the costs. Nonetheless, the previous administration forged ahead with new rounds of appliance standards, despite questions about economic justification.

For example, the most recent electric water heater rule had a payback period of 5.6 years, well beyond the rebuttable presumption of 3 years.²³ And if the agency’s cost estimate of $953 proves to be low, the actual payback period would be longer.

Given the drift towards excessive regulation, it makes sense to set out numerical guideposts for the agency when determining economic justification. The proposed rule suggests rejecting standard levels that raise up-front costs (purchase and installation) by more than 10 percent, or that result in more than 20 percent of consumers experiencing net costs relative to no new standards. It also sets a firm payback period equal to half the expected life of the appliance. These metrics would preclude future standard levels that do not meet a rational definition of economic justification, and indeed the statutory intent of EPCA suggests they should be set at a more stringent level.

C. Limited Applicability of Climate Change and Other Environmental Factors in Appliance Standard Setting

EPCA is not a climate change law. It is primarily a consumer statute, not an environmental one, as evidenced by the overwhelming focus on consumer factors that must be met for a rule to be economically justified. However, the last of the seven factors in determining economic justification is the catchall “other factors the Secretary [of Energy] considers relevant.”²⁴ It is under this provision that environmental considerations have entered into the appliance standard setting process, with a particular emphasis on climate change during the Biden administration.

Despite the tangential relevance of climate change in determining whether a rule is economically justified, the Biden DOE devoted substantial attention to it in every appliance rulemaking. For example, the Federal Register notice regarding its proposed furnace rule referenced “climate benefits” 88 times.²⁵ Each of these Biden DOE rules were accompanied by agency-generated calculations of the monetized climate benefits, based on the social cost of carbon (SCC).

More explicitly limiting the role of climate change and other environmental concerns are several other consumer protections built into EPCA. This includes the absolute prohibition on any appliance standard that DOE finds is “likely to result in the unavailability in the United States in any covered type (or class) of performance characteristics (including reliability), features, sizes, capacities, and volumes that are substantially the same as those generally available in the United States at the time of the Secretary’s finding.”²⁶ In other words, the agency cannot, under any circumstances, finalize a rule likely to compromise any desired product attributes, and this provision applies regardless of any claimed climate or other environmental benefits.

The proposed rule here would take out the language added to the process rule by the previous administration directing the agency to consider environmental effects, including climate change. This is a better interpretation of EPCA, given that the statute never specifically mentions environmental concerns.

The proposed rule references Executive Order 14154, under which the Trump administration states that “all agencies shall adhere to only the relevant legislated requirements for environmental considerations and any considerations beyond these requirements are eliminated.”²⁷ This Executive Order further states that “[t]he calculation of the ‘social cost of carbon’ is marked by logical deficiencies, a poor basis in empirical science, politicization, and the absence of a foundation in legislation,” and forbids its use in regulatory proceedings.²⁸

By taking out the specific mention of such environmental considerations, the proposed rule aligns with this Executive Order. More importantly, it aligns with the statutory language and intent of EPCA. However, we suggest that the agency go further and affirmatively state that claimed environmental concerns, and especially climate-related ones, are superseded by the statutory consumer protections in all future appliance rulemakings.

D. Preserving Consumer Choice

EPCA treats energy efficiency as a factor to be balanced against others that are also important to consumers – and not as a single-minded obsession to be pursued at the exclusion of all else. As discussed previously, the statute explicitly forbids the agency from pursing efficiency that sacrifices any appliance attributes valued by consumers – in the statute’s words, “performance characteristics (including reliability), features, sizes, capacities, and volumes….”²⁹ The test is that any product attribute on the market before a new efficiency standard is promulgated must still be available after the standard goes into effect.

This provision protects against energy efficiency coming at the expense of consumer choice and satisfaction. However, this protection has often been ignored. For example, past rules have led to dishwashers that take much longer to do a normal cycle as well as washing machines with diminished cleaning performance and reliability.³⁰ None of this would have happened if EPCA had been followed.

Perhaps the most egregious example concerns the 2023 furnace final rule. This rule would have effectively eliminated non-condensing gas furnaces, despite this type being the best option for millions of homes.³¹ It should be noted that the rule disproportionately burdens lower-income and senior homeowners whose older homes are often best suited for non-condensing furnaces.³²

Clearly, the strongly protective language in EPCA should have preserved an entire category of furnaces that is the preference of many homeowners. Nonetheless, DOE devised its own narrow reading of the provision that did not include these non-condensing models as a protected feature.

Upon legal challenge, the furnace rule was initially upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.³³ However, it was subsequently vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court and remanded the issue back to the lower court.³⁴ The Supreme Court relied on a DOE brief revising its earlier position. In this brief, DOE stated that that the agency’s rule employed “an unduly narrow understanding of what constitutes a ‘performance characteristic’ under EPCA” and “rested on a legal error.”³⁵

It should not be necessary for the proposed rule to include additional provisions preserving consumer choice in the appliance standard-setting process. As it is, EPCA’s language protecting choice could not be any more clear, and the recent Supreme Court decision ought to remove any possibility of future agency action trying to circumvent these protections. Nonetheless, given past agency rules diminishing consumer choice, there is value in the proposed rule’s additional language reiterating the protections already set out in the law.

IV. Conclusion

The proposed process rule reforms would be unnecessary if the plain language of EPCA had been consistently followed by DOE. The agency would not finalize rules whose energy savings are insignificant, ones that may cost consumers more than they save, nor ones that compromise appliance performance and choice. And climate change would never be pursued at the expense of consumer satisfaction. Unfortunately, many such problematic appliance rules have been promulgated over the years, necessitating the proposed changes to the process rule. These proposed changes restore Congressional intent and should be finalized.

Respectfully Submitted,

Ben Lieberman
Senior Fellow
Competitive Enterprise Institute
1310 L Street, NW 7th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
(202)331-1010

¹ Comments of Free Market Organizations to the Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Furnaces, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, October 5, 2022, https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/FurnaceComment-10-5-2022-final.pdf; Comments of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to the Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Standards for Conventional Cooking Products, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Direct Final Rule, June 3, 2024, https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Stoves-Comment-5-30-2024.pdf; Comments of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Michael Mannino to the Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Standards for Residential Clothes Washers, May 17, 2023, https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/DOE-ClothesWashers-5-18-2023.pdf; Comments of Free Market Organization to the Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Standards for General Service Lamps, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, December 13, 2021, https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/LightBulbsComment-1-2022.pdf; Comments of Free Market Organizations to the Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Standards for Dishwashers, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, July 18, 2023, https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/dishwashers-7-18-2023.pdf; Comments of Free Market Organizations to the Department of Energy, Energy, Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Water Heaters, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, September 26, 2024, https://cei.org/wpcontent/uploads/2023/09/WaterHeaters-9-2023.pdf.

² 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,” Public Law 119-6 (2026), https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-joint-resolution/20.

³ Am. Gas Ass’n v. United States Dep’t of Energy, 25-879 (U.S. June 8, 2026), https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-879/416239/20260710161800292_EFILING%2025-879%20GVR%20COSTS%20D.C.%20Cir.pdf

⁴ 42 USC §6295(o)(2)(A).

⁵ Ben Lieberman, Free the Appliances! – Turn Out the Lights on Federal Efficiency Standards, (Competitive Enterprise Institute, December 2025), https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/OnPoint_304_-_Free_the_Appliances_FINAL.pdf.

⁶ Id., at 3.

⁷ Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Program: “Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Water Heaters, Final Rule,” 89 Fed. Reg. 37,778, May 6, 2024, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-05-06/pdf/2024-09209.pdf.

⁸ The Mercury News, “Bay Area ban on new natural gas water heaters, set to take effect in seven months, may be relaxed over cost concerns,” May 5, 2026, https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/05/05/ban-on-new-natural-gas-water-heaters-set-to-take-effect-in-seven-months-may-be-relaxed/.

⁹ Comments of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to the Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Standards for Conventional Cooking Products, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Direct Final Rule, June 3, 2024, https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Stoves-Comment-5-30-2024.pdf.

¹⁰ Ben Lieberman, Department of Energy is Coming After Our Light Bulbs – Again, (Competitive Enterprise Institute, April 19, 2024), https://cei.org/blog/department-of-energy-coming-after-our-light-bulbs-again/.

¹¹ Code of Federal Regulations, “Appendix A to Subpart C of Part 430—Procedures, Interpretations, and Policies for Consideration of New or Revised Energy Conservation Standards and Test Procedures for Consumer Products and Certain Commercial/Industrial Equipment,” https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-10/chapter-II/subchapter-D/part-430/subpart-C/appendix-Appendix%20A%20to%20Subpart%20C%20of%20Part%20430.

¹² Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, “Energy Conservation Program for Appliance Standards: Procedures for Use in New or Revised Energy Conservation Standards and Test Procedures for Consumer Products and Commercial/Industrial Equipment: Final Rule,” 85 Fed. Reg. 8626, February 14, 2020, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-02-14/pdf/2020-00023.pdf.

¹³ Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, “Energy Conservation Program for Appliance Standards: Procedures, Interpretations, and Policies for Consideration in New or Revised Energy Conservation Standards and Test Procedures for Consumer Products and Commercial/Industrial Equipment: Final Rule,” 86 Fed. Reg. 70892, December 13, 2021, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-12-13/pdf/2021-25725.pdf.

¹⁴ 42 USC §6295(o)(3)(B).

¹⁵ Comments of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to the Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Standards for Conventional Cooking Products, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Direct Final Rule, June 3, 2024, https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Stoves-Comment-5-30-2024.pdf.

¹⁶ State of Mississippi v. Dep’t of Energy, No. 24-60529 (5th Cir. 2026), https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60529-CV0.pdf.

¹⁷ 42 USC §6291(4).

¹⁸ Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Program: “Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Conventional Cooking Products, Direct Final Rule,” 89 Fed. Reg. 65,520, August 12, 2024, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-08-12/pdf/2024-17474.pdf.

¹⁹ Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024).

²⁰ 89 Fed. Reg. 65,520, at 65,529.

²¹ 42 USC §6295(o)(2)(B)(i).

²² 42 USC §6295(o)(2)(B).

²³ Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Program: “Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Water Heaters, Final Rule,” 89 Fed. Reg. 37,778, May 6, 2024, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-05-06/pdf/2024-09209.pdf/.

²⁴ 42 U.S.C. §6295(o)(2)(B)(vii).

²⁵ Department of Energy, “Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Furnaces, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” 87 Fed. Reg.40,590, July 7, 2022, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-07-07/pdf/2022-13108.pdf.

²⁶ 42 USC §6295(o)(4).

²⁷ Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” January 20, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unleashing-american-energy/

²⁸ Id.

²⁹ 42 USC §6295(o)(4).

³⁰ Comments of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to the Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Program, Energy Conservation Standards for Dishwashers, Residential Clothes Washers, and Consumer Clothes Washers, Notification of Proposed Confirmation of Withdrawal and Request for Comment, December 9, 2024, https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Dishwashers-12-5-2024-3.pdf; Comments of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Michael Mannino to the Department of Energy, Energy Conservation Standards for Residential Clothes Washers, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, May 17, 2023, https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/DOE-ClothesWashers-5-18-2023.pdf.

³¹ Brief for the Competitive Enterprise Institute as Amicus Curiae, Am. Gas Ass’n v. United States Dep’t of Energy, 25-879 (U.S. June 8, 2026), https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/25-879-Competitive-Enterprise-Institute-Amicus-Brief-Feb-20-2026.pdf

³² American Gas Association, “DOE’s Furnace Rule Harms Americans,” press release, https://www.aga.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/DOE-Furnace-Rule-One-Pager_FINAL.pdf

³³ Am. Gas Ass’n v. United States Dep’t of Energy, 157 F.4th 476 (D.C. Cir. 2025), https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2025/11/22-1030-2143684.pdf.

³⁴ Am. Gas Ass’n v. United States Dep’t of Energy, 25-879 (U.S. June 8, 2026), https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-879/416239/20260710161800292_EFILING%2025-879%20GVR%20COSTS%20D.C.%20Cir.pdf.

³⁵ Brief for the Federal Respondents, Am. Gas Ass’n v. United States Dep’t of Energy, 25-879 (U.S. June 8, 2026), https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-879/405546/20260428153159320_25-879%20American%20Gas%20Response.pdf.