A company that embraced the Biden administration’s efforts to force climate-friendly requirements on residential appliances is behind a last-ditch lobbying effort to save a controversial rule targeting gas-powered residential water heaters—even as other industry manufacturers say that rule will cost them millions of dollars.
A.O. Smith, the nation’s largest water heater manufacturer, circulated a memorandum to Republican Senate offices last week, imploring lawmakers to support the Biden-era regulations and, in particular, to vote against Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R., Texas) bill that would overturn those regulations. A.O. Smith vice president Joshua Greene, a former Democratic congressional aide, authored the memo in mid-January, a Washington Free Beacon review of the document’s metadata found.
The effort is noteworthy because it reveals how federal regulations, including those designed to fight global warming, can be weaponized to boost a company’s bottom line. It also puts a spotlight on A.O. Smith’s coordination with the Biden administration as it sought to crack down on appliances and funnel taxpayer funds to climate programs.
In August, the Department of Energy awarded A.O. Smith with a $25 million green energy grant to expand its electric heat pump water heater manufacturing capabilities, something that likely makes it easier for the company to move on from manufacturing the gas-powered models impacted by the regulations finalized in December. An industry source familiar with A.O. Smith’s business told the Free Beacon that the company has agreed in recent years to stop manufacturing most of its gas-powered tankless water heater models—the same ones targeted by the Biden-era regulations—in favor of tank water heaters and electric heat pump water heaters. In other words, the company is largely insulated from the rules.
Rinnai America—a water heater manufacturer that, unlike A.O. Smith, largely sells gas-powered tankless models—is not. Rinnai told the Free Beacon last month that the Biden administration’s regulations “make no sense” and would cost the company tens of millions of dollars. Rinnai also joined a lawsuit filed last month by Republican-led states and industry groups challenging the rules. […]
— Read More: freebeacon.com
