US states, New York City sue EPA for relaxing climate rule over hydrofluorocarbons
By Jonathan Stempel
July 21 (Reuters) – The Trump administration was sued on Tuesday by 18 Democratic-led states, Washington D.C. and New York City over a new federal rule that they said would harm the climate by giving companies more time to “stop using hazardous hydrofluorocarbons in commercial refrigeration equipment.”
The petition, filed in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., challenges the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to push back deadlines for companies to replace climate-friendly refrigerants with hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs.
Opponents said the rule would increase harmful greenhouse gas emissions and repeal part of the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, which calls for an 85% reduction in HFCs by 2036.
President Donald Trump signed this law in December 2020, less than a month before the end of his first term in the White House. The “Phase Reduction of Hydrofluorocarbons” rule is scheduled to go into effect on July 27.
The EPA said in a statement that its longstanding practice is not to comment on pending litigation. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is also named in the petition.
The Trump administration has scaled back several environmental initiatives and standards, including reducing support for clean energy and repealing the Obama administration’s scientific finding that climate change threatens public health.
HFCs are often used in air conditioners, large refrigerators and freezers in supermarkets, and refrigeration equipment used in semiconductor manufacturing.
THE RULE SAYS IT THREATENES CLIMATE PROGRESS
A provision of the EPA rule allows supermarkets, grocery stores and bakeries to continue using remote condensing systems through 2032 that carry refrigerants with more than nine times the previously allowed global warming potential, states said.
“EPA’s new rule will undo the progress we have made and penalize companies that comply with the law,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a webcast announcing the lawsuit.
Bonta also accused Trump of “once again putting industry profits ahead of the health and well-being of the American people and the future of our planet.”
The petition is led by the attorneys general of California, Massachusetts and Washington state.
They were joined by the attorneys general of Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and Washington DC, as well as New York City.
In a regulatory filing, the EPA said the rule would advance efforts to lower the cost of living for American families and would not force companies to use technologies that make food and semiconductors more expensive.
It was also stated that the deregulation effort would further Trump’s call of January 31, 2025, to “unleash prosperity through deregulation.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York)
