Stop Biden’s refrigerator rules before they freeze out small business 

In the final days of the Biden administration, the Department of Energy rushed to finalize an onslaught of new regulations on a massive range of everyday consumer and commercial products such as water heaters, dishwashers and ceiling fans. One such regulation, finalized in the final hours of the Biden administration, would mandate new “energy conservation standards” for commercial refrigeration equipment, which includes commercial refrigerators and freezers. 

Under the guise of creating more “energy efficient” equipment, these unnecessary and costly standards burden manufacturers, small businesses and American consumers. As a result, these regulations pose serious food safety risks and increase costs for small businesses and consumers. 

Although the Department of Energy is authorized to set energy efficiency standards for commercial equipment, the law explicitly requires new regulations be technologically feasible and economically justified. This requirement ensures the government cannot implement new regulations that impose an undue requirement on our economy with no real benefit.

The Biden administration’s last-minute energy conservation standards completely fail to meet these reasonable requirements.  

The Biden rule places an unachievable burden on manufacturers, requiring them to create a technologically infeasible product at significant costs. To this point, manufacturers warn that complying with this regulation would require an impractical and costly redesign of their equipment.  

Moreover, the Department of Energy’s assumptions regarding this rule do not reflect real-world conditions. For example, the rule fails to account for how often a busy restaurant opens the doors of its refrigerators and freezers during peak business hours. As a result, under the new standards, an appliance’s interior temperature may rise above safe food-storage conditions. Clearly, the rule is not only not technologically infeasible, it also fails to fulfill the main purpose of refrigeration equipment: keeping food safe to consume. 

Additionally, according to the Department of Energy’s own projections, these standards will result in a significant economic burden, ultimately falling on small businesses and consumers. The Biden rule would significantly increase the costs of commercial refrigeration equipment as manufacturers are forced to redesign the technology of already expensive equipment. As always, higher manufacturing costs will hit small businesses first, forcing them to absorb the expense before inevitably passing it on to consumers — who are already struggling with higher costs of living after the last four years under Joe Biden.  

The result is far from “economically justified.” It is time to fully repeal these unnecessary energy standards on commercial equipment.  

In November, the American people voted to restore common sense and limited government in Washington, and that’s exactly what Republicans are delivering. On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order mandating a review of Biden’s appliance regulations, to ensure they don’t impose undue burdens.  

Alongside the White House, Congress is working to rein in the Biden administration’s excessive standards. In February, the House of Representatives passed two Congressional Review Act resolutions, H.J. Res. 20 and H.J. Res. 42, to overturn Biden’s last-minute attempts to impose heavy-handed Department of Energy appliance standards, led by my colleagues Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.).   

Continuing this campaign to roll back the Biden administration’s most egregious regulations, I led a resolution, H.J. Res. 75, to repeal burdensome standards on commercial refrigerators and freezers. Thankfully, the House passed my resolution. It is critical that Congress act swiftly to ensure the outright repeal of this rule and close the book on the Biden administration’s costly and unnecessary energy efficiency standards. 

Manufacturers, small businesses and the American people can now rest assured their federal government will not attempt to regulate certain appliances out of existence or pointlessly drive up the cost of living. I will remain committed to repealing burdensome government regulations and championing legislation to lower the cost of living for hardworking Americans, both in my district and across the nation. 

Craig Goldman represents Texas's 12th Congressional District in the 119th U.S. House of Representatives.