US Pushes Court to Dismiss Challenge to Appliance Regulations

The Department of Energy urged a federal court Monday to reject arguments from a lawsuit challenging the agency’s water efficiency standards for household appliances.

The agency asserts those challenges belong in the circuit courts—not district courts—and the plaintiffs lack standing because they don’t sufficiently show harm created by the new standards.

“A dispute over statutory interpretation is all that Plaintiffs have raised here: they disagree with the Department over how to read EPCA,” the agency wrote in its reply in support of its motion to dismiss the case, citing the Energy Policy and Conservation Act.

The department told the US ...