Appliance Energy Efficiency Bill Hearing

Flora Cardoni, PennEnvironment Deputy Director

February, 27 2025

Public Testimony for the House Energy Committee

Good afternoon. I’d like to start out by thanking Chair Fiedler, Chair Causer, Steve Petro, Glendon King, and all of the members of the House Energy Committee for allowing me to testify at today’s hearing on the important topic of energy and water conservation, and House Bill 660. My name is Flora Cardoni, I’m the Deputy Director with PennEnvironment. PennEnvironment is a statewide, citizen-based environmental nonprofit group dedicated to ensuring that all Pennsylvanians have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, protected public lands to enjoy, and a safe and livable climate to call home. 

I’m here today to speak in support of House Bill 660, Representative Jennifer O’Mara and Thomas Mehaffie’s legislation to set energy efficiency and water conservation standards for a set of 15 commonly used appliances sold in Pennsylvania.

Implementing energy conservation standards are a critical way to save PA residents and businesses money as utility bills continue to rise, and consumers are facing rising costs generally. Consider the fact that PECO just raised its rates by 10% on January 1st and rate payers are likely facing another double-digit rate increase from PECO this upcoming summer. First Energy raised its rates 6-8% and are expected to see an increase this summer again. 

These rising utility bills and uncertainty with PJM have all of us wondering what we can do to help Pennsylvania families afford the energy that is necessary for powering our lives. We need to tackle this problem from every angle—and that includes making sure that our appliances are as efficient as possible so that we’re not wasting and paying for energy we don’t need to be using in the first place. House bill 660 does just that, helping Pennsylvania ratepayers save incredible amounts of money. In fact, the proposed water conservation and energy efficiency standards are projected to save Pennsylvania residents and businesses an incredible $154 million each year by 2030, and then reach $478 million per year in reductions by 2040. 

The same can be said for water. Last fall, more than half of Pennsylvania’s counties experienced a drought watch. Philadelphia, where I call home, suffered through the longest stretch without rain since record keeping began 154 years ago in 1871. Sadly, we often don’t think about conserving water until it’s too late and we’ve reached the stage of a drought watch or warning. But conserving water can and should be on our minds year in and year out, not just when facing extreme drought conditions. 

One of the main benefits to this appliance standards bill is that it would save a lot of water. In fact it could help Pennsylvanians conserve 4 billion gallons of water annually within five years.

This legislation’s concept is fairly simple: ensure that a set of commonly used appliances sold in PA use water conservation technology that exists and is highly effective today. By taking this commonsense step for appliances like faucets, toilets, urinals, and showerheads Pennsylvanians could save more than 13 billion gallons of water annually by 2040. This is enough water to meet the needs of nearly 250,000 Pennsylvania households over a year.

And the benefits don’t stop there. The standards proposed in HB 660 will also help reduce harmful air pollution that makes Pennsylvanians sick. Research shows that adopting statewide appliance standards helps reduce harmful air and climate pollution from entering our atmosphere, helping to protect our health and tackle climate change at the same time. That’s because the cleanest energy is the energy you don’t need to use in the first place. 

If implemented into law, the efficiency standards in House Bill 660 are expected to dramatically slash emissions of harmful air pollutants that cause asthma and other respiratory ailments. For example, nitrogen oxide pollution would be expected to be reduced by 278 tons a year by 2040, and sulfur dioxide reductions are estimated to reach 76 tons a year by 2040. Reducing this pollution will be a huge benefit for the more than one million Pennsylvanians who suffer from asthma. 

The standards in House Bill 660 are also expected to cut carbon dioxide emissions in Pennsylvania by over 483,000 tons by 2040 — that’s equal to taking over 110,000  gas-powered cars off the road. This is a simple and commonsense policy to help reduce Pennsylvania’s carbon footprint and help tackle climate change. 

Now, how does the bill help Pennsylvanians’ realize these savings? The bill works by setting minimum energy efficiency and water conservation standards for the sale of new appliances sold in the state for these 15 appliances so that they don’t use and waste more energy or water than necessary. 

There are two very important points I want to make about the implementation of this legislation. First, once the law goes into effect, it will only apply to new appliances being sold in the commonwealth –it will not require consumers or businesses to change out appliances that they already have, or retroactively be placed onto appliances already sold to Pennsylvanians. It doesn’t make the less efficient appliances illegal to use in Pennsylvania, nor would it be illegal to buy or sell used appliances. Second, I want to emphasize that all of the efficient models of appliances in HB 660 are already on the market, competitively priced, and available to Pennsylvania consumers and businesses today, with lots of options to choose from that meet the required standards. In fact, most of them have the same sticker price as the energy efficient ones, so consumers can start seeing savings immediately.

Finally, I want to emphasize that Representative O’Mara and Mehaffie’s legislation is modeled after successful legislation already implemented in other states. In fact, since 2018, thirteen other states have adopted efficiency standards for appliances. Their states’ residents are already reaping the benefits of more energy efficient appliances, and Pennsylvania should be the next state to do so. 

Setting appliance efficiency standards is a common sense policy with a big impact. After all, we shouldn’t keep using products that expend more energy and water than they need to. Passing this bill would help the Commonwealth reduce energy waste, save water, lower air pollution, and save consumers millions of dollars on their utility bills, benefiting all Pennsylvanians.

And it’s not just a beneficial policy, it’s a popular one. In fact, polling shows that 83% of registered voters across parties support setting stronger efficiency standards for appliances.

Here in the Commonwealth, dozens of organizations joined PennEnvironment in voicing support for this common sense policy.

Given all of the benefits of this bill and the widespread support for this policy, PennEnvironment supports HB 660 and hopes that this committee will bring up and pass this important legislation.

Thank you.