The Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a pre-publication Federal Register notice of open meetings pertaining to the circulator pumps working group.

The comment period is extended until April 14, 2016. 

While ACCA and its members had a successful year, there were a number of challenges the industry faced as a whole. Some of the biggest were keeping up with the regulatory proposals and bills in Congress.

Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, called the hearing to examine the issue of “midnight” regulations that often appear during the last few months of a president’s term.

The comment period closes April 4, 2016.

Comments are due 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.

DOE will hold a public meeting on April 4, 2016, in Washington, DC.

DOE is establishing a procedure through which an interested party can, within a 30-day period after DOE posts a rule establishing or amending an energy conservation standard, identify a possible error in such a rule and request that DOE correct the error before the rule is published in the Federal Register. 

The ASRAC established the Central Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps Working Group in July 2015; it is the latest of several working groups to successfully create negotiated efficiency standards for industry equipment. Other negotiated rulemakings aided by working groups include walk-in coolers and freezers, regional standards enforcement, and commercial rooftop air conditioners and furnaces. 

More than half of U.S. commercial building space is cooled by packaged HVAC equipment, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Additionally, existing rooftop units consume more than 1.3 percent of the country’s annual energy usage. It’s no surprise the biggest trend driving the rooftop market is efficiency.