AG Brown co-leads challenge to federal rule weakening regulation of highly potent greenhouse gas

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unlawfully adopted a rule weakening regulations designed to phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in commercial equipment, which will increase greenhouse gas emissions and harm Washington's efforts to address climate change, and a multistate coalition co-led by Attorney General Nick Brown is challenging EPA's rule in a lawsuit filed today.

HFCs are chemicals used for refrigeration and cooling that are up to 10,000 times more potent than the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide, and they are among the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions both in the United States and around the world. The rule rolls back some of the existing deadlines for industry to move from using HFCs to refrigerants with less Global Warming Potential (GWP).

This undermines EPA's current regulations under the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act), which are designed to largely phase out HFCs by 2036. In the petition filed today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the coalition asked the court to review EPA's new rule.

"Washington has long recognized the unique threats polluting greenhouse gases pose to the health of our people and our environment, and our state has been at the forefront of phasing out harmful hydrofluorocarbons," Attorney General Nick Brown said. "That's why we're fighting this administration's reckless and illegal effort to roll back congressionally approved limits on these super pollutants."

Climate change threatens Washington by, among other things, raising sea levels along the state's more than 3,000 miles of shoreline and causing life-threatening heatwaves. Washington state has committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Legislature has passed several laws to reduce emissions, including from HFCs. The state has phased out some end uses of HFCs and banned the sale of certain products that use heavily polluting refrigerants. The federal rollback does not override Washington's state laws restricting HFCs, but Washingtonians will still be harmed by EPA permitting higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions from HFCs nationally.

Threat to the climate

HFCs are widely used in commercial, residential, and mobile cooling systems, such as air conditioning and refrigeration. Once deemed a safer alternative for the environment relative to ozone-depleting substances (chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs), which damage the earth's ozone layer, HFCs were later discovered to pose a major threat to the climate.

Because of their extreme potency, HFCs' increasing share of emissions, and their relatively short lifespan in the atmosphere, reducing consumption and production of HFCs is particularly important for addressing climate change.

In December 2020, President Trump signed the bipartisan AIM Act into law. The AIM Act provides a framework through which the United States will phase out the production and consumption of HFCs by about 85% by 2036. The law requires EPA to help industries transition to a lower supply of these gases over time. The EPA's new rule delays one of the first steps in this transition from this year to 2032, giving industries a longer, unnecessary, and illegal delay in transitioning to gases with a lower GWP. If allowed to move forward, the rule will increase HFC emissions, accelerating the damage already threatening our planet from climate change. Further, the rule threatens to cause shortages and price spikes in the HFC market that could be passed from retailers to consumers.

In the lawsuit, Brown and the coalition will argue that EPA's final rule is arbitrary and capricious and violates the AIM Act.

The lawsuit was led by Brown, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell. They were joined by the attorneys general of Colorado, Delaware, Hawai'i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. The City of New York, New York, also joined.

A copy of the petition for review is available here. A copy of the states' comment letter on the rule is available here.

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