GRIFFIN — U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and workers at a Georgia tankless water heater factory praised the elimination of energy efficiency requirements Friday that would have threatened their jobs.
The event at the Rinnai America factory highlighted a bill that passed Congress last month, which eliminates new energy efficiency standards proposed in December during the final weeks of the Biden administration.
“The thought that some bureaucrats who none of us have ever met would slide a regulation in the day after Christmas to end your job and this factory, that is just beyond crazy,” Wright said at the factory in Griffin, which employs over 200 people.
The factory in Griffin is the only U.S. manufacturer of non-condensing tankless water heaters, a product the Biden administration had sought to ban by the end of the decade.
Every day, two assembly lines at the plant produce 800 non-condensing tankless water heaters, which are more energy-efficient than traditional water heater tanks but consume more gas than condensing water heaters, which reuse the heat they generate.
Condensing water heaters are often more expensive up-front, but their lower energy costs can save money for households over time and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
If it hadn’t been repealed, the energy efficiency regulation would have had a “dramatic impact” on the Georgia factory, which opened three years ago, said Rinnai America President Frank Windsor.
“Our customers, because of that rule, would have started to walk away from our technology,” Windsor said. “We would have lost millions of dollars in sales.”
An organization that supported the higher energy efficiency requirements, the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, said they shouldn’t have been eliminated.
Rinnai’s annual report last year said the company planned to produce condensing tankless water heaters at the Georgia factory in the future, though they’re currently manufactured in Japan.
“These efficiency standards were going to ensure that all new gas tankless water heaters were the more efficient type that save households money,” said Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project. “Congress and President Trump stepping in to maintain production of the less efficient type isn’t saving jobs, and it’s not good news for consumers.”
President Donald Trump is expected to sign the rollback bill.
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