[DavidPeiffer]

>...I am sorta doubtful companies will deliberately make less efficient appliances if it goes away.

Working in the manufacturing space, I have no doubt designs will change and energy consumption will go up. They will be able to remove sensors, heat water hotter in dishwashers and clothes washers, run cycles more aggressively, and use cheaper motors (such as HVAC fans). Any item you can remove from the bill of materials adds to the profit directly.

Capital expenditure versus operating expenditure is a common tradeoff discussed in a business sense, and the Energy Star gave a pretty darn good comparison for opex for consumers. Taking that away (even with some of the games that have been played over the years) is a huge loss for consumers.

[HillRat]

Flip side of this is that every one of these regulatory rollbacks will get challenged in court as arbitrary and capricious (after all, no more Chevron), reinstated by the next Democratic administration anyway, and possibly not even be functionally repealed (creating potential liability down the road), so at least for a while manufacturers will probably continue to act as if the standards are still in effect.

This, of course, is exactly the kind of chaos and uncertainty that the APA and all those agency processes are supposed to prevent, but it’s a roller coaster for the next few years at least.

[ocdtrekkie]

Isn't it a huge selling point though that new appliances are more efficient? Like... a lot of people have old appliances that... basically work, and the fact that you might make a lot of that cost back in efficiency savings is one of the heavy incentives behind sales.

I'd agree Energy Star requires presenting that, but I feel like a lot of manufacturers would want to.