NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council) sued the Environmental Protection Agency for eliminating leak prevention and repair requirements for hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, the powerful heat-trapping pollutants used in commercial and industrial refrigeration.
NRDC filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit seeking review of a rule EPA finalized in March that withdrew a 2016 requirement for industry to detect and repair refrigerant leaks in appliances that use HFCs.
The following is a statement from David Doniger, senior strategic director in the Climate & Clean Energy Program at NRDC:
“This rollback makes no sense, except to the Trump EPA in its unrelenting drive to put polluters ahead of people. The EPA would rather allow these easily prevented HFC emissions equal to carbon pollution from 625,000 cars hit the atmosphere every year, than require technicians take reasonable steps to find and fix leaks. That’s wrong-headed and wasteful, even more so because it will save industry so little money but cost us so much in harm.
“We’re going to court to restore these common sense HFC protections. EPA should be looking for every opportunity to ease the growing climate crisis—not add fuel to the fire.”
This is the 112th lawsuit NRDC has filed against the Trump administration over its environmental and safety rollbacks. NRDC has won 90 percent of the 72 cases decided to date.
The lawsuit NRDC filed is here: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/petition-review-hfcs-20200511.pdf