Trump eases Biden-era refrigerant regulations
By: Joey Garrison
USA Today
WASHINGTON - The Trump administration on May 21 [2026] overhauled two Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency rules for refrigerant in a push the White House claims will lower grocery costs for consumers.
.....
One action, reported first by USA Today, delays deadlines for grocers and other companies to phase out the use of clientele-damaging chlorofluorocarbons for refrigeration under the 2023 Technology Transitions Rule.
..... Chlorofluorocarbons sued for refrigeration and cooling, are considered "super pollutants" that, although shortlisted in the atmosphere, are more powerful than carbon dioxide.
..... The move is expected to make more refrigerants - the key chemical compounds in freezers, refrigerators and air conditioning systems - available for supermarkets, homeowners and other businesses, which the White House estimates will produce $900 million in savings, including $800 million on groceries.
..... The EPA also took steps to amend the 2024 emission Reduction and Reclamation program to exempt all road refrigerant appliances sued to transport foods form new leak requirements for chlorofluorocarbons. The White House projects an additional $1.5 billion in savings from this change.
..... Trump announced the EPA changes at an Oval Office event, with executives from Kroger, Piggy Wiggly, Fairway Stores and other grocery chains standing behind the president.
..... Although grocery companies have not made any binding commitment to pass the cost savings to consumers, Kroger CEO Greg Foran said his company is "right in the middle of doing that at the moment."
..... Trump railed against the refrigerant regulations as a "tremendous burden'" that he said was driving up food prices at grocery chains. He said grocery stores have been forced to shift to energy-efficient refrigerators that he claimed don't work as well.
.....
"We have to get rid of the law that was signed quite a while ago, because ultimately we want to make it permanent," Trump said, adding that he plans to later repeal the entire rule phasing out hydro-fluorocarbons in refrigerants.
..... When the hydorofluorcarbon phaseout was approved under former President Joe Biden in 2023, the EPA warned of greenhouse gases hat have "global warming potentials that can be hundreds of thousands of times greater than that of carbon dioxide."
..... The Biden-era EPA estimated the rule would reduce emissions equal to 876 million tons of carbon dioxide through 2050, producing $50.4 billion savings through climate change mitigation and an additional $5.4 billion in savings by shifting to cheaper hydrofluorcarbon substitutes.
.....
Trump, who has gutted much of Biden's climate agenda, brushed off environmental concerns.
..... EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who was on hand for the White House event, said the refrigerant rules adopted by the Biden administration "didn't protect human health or the environment and instead piled on costly, unattainable restriction beyond what the law requires."