Rinnai America Corporation has joined 21 attorney generals and a broad coalition of business groups in filing a petition to review the US Department of Energy's final rule on consumer tankless water heaters.
The rule led to a de facto ban of popular noncondensing tankless products.
The petition, filed last week in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, likely represents the last multistate action of the Biden Administration.
In addition to Rinnai, other plaintiffs include the attorneys general of Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia; the National Propane Gas Association, the National Association of Homebuilders, the American Gas Association, the American Public Gas Association, the Natural Gas Association of Georgia, the Florida Propane Gas Association, and the Florida Natural Gas Association.
Rinnai America president, Frank Windsor, said noncondensing tankless water heaters have saved tens of billions of pounds of carbon emissions in the few years they have been on the market.
"The Department of Energy's unlawful and ill-considered ban on noncondensing tankless technology interrupts an organic free-market shift towards decarbonisation, denies consumer choice, and threatens hundreds of quality US manufacturing jobs,” he said.
“Our employees and the American families we serve are extremely gratified by the outpouring of material support from state attorneys general and federal lawmakers, who have introduced a Congressional Review Act measure to block DOE's rule."
Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr, said the Biden administration is completely out of touch with everyday Americans.
"The federal government cannot dictate the type of water heater you choose to own in your home. This is an ill-conceived ban that will only serve to drive up costs for hardworking families who are already struggling to make ends meet,” Carr said.
In December 2024, DOE issued a revised final rulemaking that mandated an efficiency level for consumer instantaneous water heaters that is technologically achieved only by condensing tankless water heaters, which are the most expensive products in the category. Despite mandating a technologically impossible efficiency standard for most tankless water heaters, DOE's final rule did not apply the same standard to less efficient storage tank products.
Rinnai America Corporation employs over 550 workers at its US manufacturing facilities, and distribution centres.
Over the last five years, the company has invested more than $US100 million to expand US manufacturing capacity of tankless water heaters.
Rinnai America Corporation, a subsidiary of Rinnai Corporation in Nagoya, Japan, was established in 1974 and is headquartered in Peachtree City, Georgia.
Annual corporate revenues, including those of its subsidiaries, are in excess of $US3.3 billion.