WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump moved this week to roll back a pair of Biden administration refrigerant regulations, directing the Environmental Protection Agency to extend compliance deadlines and ease leak repair requirements that the White House said were driving up food prices and threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The EPA finalized revisions to the 2023 Technology Transitions Rule, extending deadlines for the phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons and making a wider range of more affordable refrigerants available to businesses. The administration also proposed corrections to the 2024 Emissions Reduction and Reclamation Rule, which had imposed leak repair requirements on virtually all large-scale refrigeration systems nationwide.
The White House said the combined actions would save Americans $2.4 billion. Changes to the Technology Transitions Rule alone are projected to save more than $900 million, including over $800 million at the supermarket level, and protect more than 350,000 high-skilled American jobs. The EPA estimated that revisions to the Emissions Reduction and Reclamation Rule could save transporters of refrigerated goods up to $1.5 billion.
The administration said the regulatory relief would benefit supermarkets, home air conditioning systems, semiconductor chip manufacturing, and medical supply transportation by lowering operating costs that had previously been passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
The refrigerant rule reversals are part of a broader deregulatory push the White House says has now yielded more than $1.2 trillion in cumulative savings. Other recent actions include a rollback of Obama-era vehicle emissions findings, adjustments to fuel economy standards, and a new Small Business Administration rule doubling loan limits for businesses in the food supply chain.
By: Big Sky Broadcasting Newswire