BEFORE THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
OFFICE OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY
In re: Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for General Service Lamps
Docket No. EERE-2022-BT-STD-0022
PETITION FOR RULEMAKING TO RECONSIDER, STAY, AND AMEND THE 2028 GENERAL SERVICE LAMP EFFICACY STANDARDS
Submitted pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 553(e); 10 C.F.R. § 430.27; and the Department's inherent authority to reconsider its own rules.
I. Introduction and Summary
1. Pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 553(e) and 10 C.F.R. § 430.27, the undersigned Petitioners respectfully request that the Department of Energy ("DOE" or "the Department") reconsider, stay, and amend the Final Rule establishing a minimum efficacy standard of 120 lumens per watt for General Service Lamps ("GSLs"), effective July 2028.
2. Although the Final Rule is nominally technology-neutral, it functions as a de facto prohibition on all commercially viable incandescent and halogen lamps, together with a substantial portion of the compact fluorescent and lower-tier LED market. In effect, it compels nationwide adoption of a narrow subset of solid-state lighting ("SSL") products.
3. Petitioners submit that the Final Rule (a) exceeds DOE's statutory authority under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act ("EPCA"), 42 U.S.C. § 6291 et seq.; (b) is arbitrary and capricious under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A) because it failed to meaningfully consider documented photobiological harms, lost consumer utility, and compatibility costs; and (c) implicates the Major Questions Doctrine by restructuring a multi-billion-dollar consumer market without clear Congressional authorization.
4. Petitioners request that DOE (i) stay the July 2028 compliance deadline in its entirety; (ii) reopen the record for supplemental comment on photobiological safety, consumer-feature availability, and statutory authority; and (iii) repeal or substantially amend the Final Rule to preserve ordinary consumer access to incandescent and halogen General Service Lamps.
II. Interests of the Petitioners
5. The Petitioners include consumers, patients with medically documented photosensitive conditions, caregivers, electricians and lighting designers, architectural preservationists, and small-business owners. Petitioners rely on incandescent and halogen lighting for household illumination, medical accommodation, color-critical professional work, and the preservation of historic American residential architecture. Each Petitioner has standing to request rulemaking under 5 U.S.C. § 553(e), which extends the right to petition to "each interested person."
III. Factual and Regulatory Background
6. EPCA, as amended by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 ("EISA"), directed DOE to evaluate efficacy standards for GSLs. Congress imposed a 45 lm/W "backstop" but did not specify any figure approaching 120 lm/W.
7. In April 2022, DOE issued a rule defining GSLs broadly; in 2024–2025, DOE finalized a Tier 2 standard of 120 lm/W effective July 2028. This efficacy floor cannot be met by any existing incandescent or halogen technology, and cannot be met by many mid-market LED products currently relied upon by consumers.
IV. The Rule Exceeds DOE's Statutory Authority
A. Violation of the EPCA "Features Protection" Clause
8. Under 42 U.S.C. § 6295(o)(4), DOE "may not prescribe an amended or new standard … if the Secretary finds … that the standard is likely to result in the unavailability … of any covered product type (or class) with performance characteristics (including reliability), features, sizes, capacities, and volumes that are substantially the same as those generally available in the United States at the time of the Secretary's finding."
9. The Final Rule will eliminate several features "generally available" in today's market, including:
- Continuous, full-spectrum black-body emission characteristic of thermal radiators, which no commercial LED replicates.
- True analog dimming from 100% to sub-1% output without pulse-width modulation ("PWM") artifacts.
- "Warm dimming" color-temperature shift from approximately 2700K toward 2200K as voltage decreases.
- Drop-in compatibility with legacy phase-cut dimmers, three-way sockets, and enclosed fixtures rated for incandescent thermal profiles.
10. DOE's Final Rule did not make the findings required by § 6295(o)(4) with respect to these features. That failure is independently grounds for repeal.
B. Major Questions Doctrine
11. A rule that eliminates a consumer product that has been in continuous use in American homes since 1879, and which restructures a multi-billion-dollar residential lighting market, is a decision of "vast economic and political significance." West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697 (2022); Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477 (2023).
12. Congress set an explicit 45 lm/W backstop in EISA and declined to raise it. DOE's imposition of a 120 lm/W floor — nearly three times the statutory backstop — cannot be sustained absent clear Congressional authorization, which is absent here.
V. The Rule Is Arbitrary and Capricious Under the APA
Under Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n v. State Farm, 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983), an agency must examine relevant data and articulate a rational connection between the facts found and the choice made. DOE failed to do so in at least four respects.
A. Failure to Consider Photobiological and Neurological Harms
13. The Final Rule's technical support document contains no quantitative analysis of the health effects associated with large-scale, involuntary substitution of solid-state lighting for thermal-radiator lighting in residential environments. This omission is inconsistent with the Department's obligation under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A) to consider all relevant factors, and is particularly significant given the following established bodies of evidence.
(i) Circadian and Melatonin Suppression
14. The discovery of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells ("ipRGCs") containing the photopigment melanopsin, with peak spectral sensitivity near 480 nm, established that short-wavelength light is the principal driver of acute melatonin suppression and circadian phase-shifting in humans. See Berson, Dunn & Takao, Science 295:1070 (2002); Brainard et al., J. Neuroscience 21(16):6405 (2001); Lucas et al., Trends in Neurosciences 37(1):1 (2014).
15. Incandescent lamps emit a continuous black-body spectrum weighted heavily toward the red and near-infrared, with comparatively little 460–490 nm output. Typical "warm white" phosphor-converted LEDs, despite a similar correlated color temperature, exhibit a distinct blue emission peak in the melanopic action range. At equal photopic lumens, this yields substantially higher melanopic equivalent daylight illuminance (mel-EDI), the metric now codified in CIE S 026:2018 for evaluating non-visual light effects.
16. The international consensus statement by Brown et al., PLOS Biology 20(3):e3001571 (2022), recommends minimizing mel-EDI exposure in the hours before sleep. A regulatory mandate that eliminates the lowest-melanopic residential light source available to consumers — with no record consideration of mel-EDI — cannot be characterized as reasoned decision-making.
(ii) Flicker and the Stroboscopic Effect
17. Many LED drivers, particularly inexpensive dimmable models, employ pulse-width modulation ("PWM") or exhibit residual ripple from inadequate rectification. The resulting luminance modulation may be invisible to the conscious visual system but is nonetheless processed by the retina and downstream pathways.
18. IEEE Standard 1789-2015, "Recommended Practices for Modulating Current in High-Brightness LEDs for Mitigating Health Risks to Viewers," defines a "low-risk" region (modulation frequency at least 3125 Hz, or modulation depth strictly limited below that) and expressly acknowledges associations between sub-threshold flicker and headache, migraine, eye strain, impaired task performance, and — in susceptible individuals — photosensitive-epilepsy triggering.
19. Independent laboratory testing by the Department's own Solid-State Lighting Program (see the "Flicker" technical briefs, 2013–2017) found that a substantial fraction of then-commercial LED products did not fall within IEEE 1789's low-risk region. Petitioners are aware of no evidence that the market has uniformly resolved this issue since.
20. By contrast, incandescent lamps exhibit negligible flicker above roughly 80–100 Hz due to the thermal inertia of the tungsten filament, a fact documented across the lighting-engineering literature and acknowledged in the IEEE 1789 standard itself.
21. The Department's failure to require any minimum flicker-performance criterion alongside its efficacy mandate means the Rule forces consumers out of a known flicker-free technology and into a product category with documented, and in many products unmitigated, flicker performance.
(iii) Retinal Blue-Light Exposure
22. The blue-light photochemical retinal hazard is a recognized phenomenon codified in the ICNIRP Guidelines on Limits of Exposure to Incoherent Visible and Infrared Radiation (2013) and in ANSI/IES RP-27 and IEC 62471 product-classification standards. The hazard action spectrum peaks near 435–440 nm.
23. Petitioners do not contend that properly engineered consumer LEDs necessarily exceed Risk Group 1 thresholds for general illumination. Petitioners contend, more modestly, that:
- Children's crystalline lenses transmit a higher fraction of short-wavelength light than adult lenses, increasing retinal blue-light dose at equivalent illuminance (see Artigas et al., Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 53:4076 (2012)).
- Individuals with age-related macular degeneration, aphakia, or pseudophakia without blue-blocking intraocular lenses are accepted by the ophthalmologic literature as more susceptible to photochemical retinal stress.
- A cradle-to-grave mandate affecting every general-service socket in every American home represents a level of chronic, involuntary exposure for which the Department has performed no cumulative-dose analysis.
(iv) Neurological and Photosensitive Populations
24. The Epilepsy Foundation and peer-reviewed neurology literature recognize photosensitive epilepsy as affecting approximately 3% of people with epilepsy, with flicker in the 3–60 Hz range posing the highest risk and higher-frequency sub-visible modulation implicated in migraine aura in a broader population (see Wilkins, Visual Stress (Oxford 1995); reviews in Cephalalgia).
25. Patients with chronic migraine, post-concussive syndrome, autism-spectrum sensory sensitivities, Irlen/Meares-Irlen visual stress syndrome, and lupus and other photosensitive autoimmune conditions commonly report symptom aggravation under fluorescent and certain LED lighting and symptom relief under incandescent lighting. While the evidentiary base varies across these conditions, the consistent clinical pattern — reported in patient-facing guidance by major medical centers — warrants, at minimum, an accommodation pathway rather than an unqualified prohibition.
26. The Rule offers no such pathway. It forecloses access to the one residential light source that this heterogeneous patient population has, over decades, identified as tolerable. That is the opposite of reasoned accommodation.
(v) Cumulative Regulatory Failure
27. Any one of the above evidentiary bodies would warrant, at a minimum, a targeted carve-out or a companion flicker/spectrum performance standard. Considered together, they establish that the Department's record is materially incomplete, and that finalizing a rule of this scope without addressing them is arbitrary and capricious within the meaning of State Farm, 463 U.S. at 43.
B. Failure to Consider Loss of Light Quality
28. Color Rendering Index (CRI) and R9. Low-cost LEDs routinely exhibit R9 (saturated red) values below 50, while incandescent lamps achieve R9 near 99. This is material for medical examination, cosmetic and dermatologic settings, museum and archival contexts, and everyday recognition of skin tone and food color.
29. Warm-dim behavior. The smooth color-temperature decrease of incandescent dimming cannot be replicated by fixed-CCT LEDs and is only approximated by premium "dim-to-warm" products at multiples of the cost.
C. Failure to Account for Compatibility and Transition Costs
30. The Final Rule's life-cycle cost analysis assumes seamless drop-in replacement. In reality, consumers face:
- Replacement of phase-cut dimmers (USD 25–50 per device) with LED-compatible trailing-edge dimmers, often requiring licensed electricians.
- Premature LED failure in enclosed or recessed fixtures designed for the thermal envelope of incandescent lamps.
- Disposal and recycling costs for electronic waste containing drivers and rare-earth phosphors, which incandescent lamps do not generate.
D. Failure to Consider Regressive Distributional Effects
31. The "appliance tax" of forced premium-LED adoption falls disproportionately on lower-income households and renters, who are less able to absorb first-cost increases for high-CRI, flicker-free fixtures and compatible dimmers.
VII. Requested Relief
Petitioners respectfully request that the Department:
Stay the July 2028 compliance deadline in its entirety, and suspend all enforcement of the 120 lm/W General Service Lamp efficacy standard, pending the completion of the actions below.
Repeal or substantially amend the Final Rule so that incandescent and halogen General Service Lamps remain lawfully available for manufacture, importation, distribution, and sale to the general American consumer without medical, professional, or architectural precondition. Access to a long-established, lawful consumer product is not a privilege to be rationed through carve-outs; it is a baseline expectation that the Department must justify disturbing, and that justification has not been met on the present record.
Reopen the rulemaking record for supplemental public comment on (a) photobiological and neurological safety, including flicker, melanopic exposure, and blue-light hazard; (b) the Department's obligations under the EPCA Features Protection Clause, 42 U.S.C. § 6295(o)(4); (c) consumer transition, compatibility, and life-cycle costs; and (d) the Rule's consistency with the Major Questions Doctrine given the absence of clear Congressional authorization for an efficacy floor nearly three times the statutory backstop.
Commission an independent interagency review, in coordination with the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, of the health, safety, and consumer-welfare implications of mandated nationwide solid-state lighting adoption, and publish that review for public comment before any successor standard is proposed.
Decline to issue any replacement standard that would have the effect, whether by design or by operation, of removing incandescent or halogen General Service Lamps from the ordinary consumer marketplace, absent (i) the specific findings required by 42 U.S.C. § 6295(o)(4), (ii) a quantitative analysis of photobiological harms on the administrative record, and (iii) express Congressional authorization for an efficacy floor of the magnitude contemplated.
VIII. Conclusion
33. The Final Rule, as currently constituted, substitutes a single lighting technology for the diverse range of products on which the American public has relied for over a century. It does so without the statutory findings EPCA requires, without engaging the photobiological record, and without a credible accounting of consumer transition costs. Petitioners respectfully urge the Department to grant the relief requested.
Respectfully submitted,
Lead Petitioner:
[Full Legal Name]
[Street Address]
[City, State, ZIP]
[Telephone] | [Email]
Co-Petitioners: See attached Signatory Schedule.
Dated:
Appendix A: Additional signatories
Appendix B — Key Authorities and References
Statutes and Regulations:
- 5 U.S.C. § 553(e); 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A)
- 42 U.S.C. § 6291 et seq. (Energy Policy and Conservation Act)
- 42 U.S.C. § 6295(o)(4) (Features Protection Clause)
- 10 C.F.R. § 430.27
Case Law:
- Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n v. State Farm, 463 U.S. 29 (1983)
- West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697 (2022)
- Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477 (2023)
- WWHT, Inc. v. FCC, 656 F.2d 807 (D.C. Cir. 1981)
Scientific and Technical Authorities:
- Berson, Dunn & Takao, Science 295:1070 (2002)
- Brainard et al., J. Neuroscience 21(16):6405 (2001)
- Lucas et al., Trends in Neurosciences 37(1):1 (2014)
- Brown et al., PLOS Biology 20(3):e3001571 (2022)
- Artigas et al., Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 53:4076 (2012)
- CIE S 026:2018 (System for Metrology of Optical Radiation for ipRGC-Influenced Responses to Light)
- IEEE Std 1789-2015 (Recommended Practices for Modulating Current in High-Brightness LEDs)
- ICNIRP Guidelines on Limits of Exposure to Incoherent Visible and Infrared Radiation (2013)
- ANSI/IES RP-27; IEC 62471 (Photobiological Safety of Lamps and Lamp Systems)
- U.S. DOE Solid-State Lighting Program, Flicker Technical Briefs (2013–2017)