I went to California earlier this year. In our apartment we had a freezer that was clearly made before politicians thought to decide to put a cap on how good a freezer could be. It was fucking amazing at freezing stuff. No freezer I've ever used could freeze this good. It was probably from the 80's - old/sturdy AF.
I wouldn't mind paying for some extra solar panels to feed it.
Getting a better energy efficiency score is one reason (and consumers are motivated on running cost, not just environmental) but presumably these are cheaper to manufacture as well.
I have an American style, EU-compliant freezer than I can set to -26° which I bought for preparing sashimi safely. It rocks! Highly recommend them.
And it's not as if there aren't a bunch of somewhat arbitrary regulation in the US either. But the general sense I got from the US, was that people still feel agency to improve their reality, and that there's fewer artificial barriers to that end. (Except for building houses in California. omg. That sounds like a horrible horrible process. At least for those I spoke to).