EPA faces court over refrigerant leaks issue
12th May 2020
USA: The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has filed a suit against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for eliminating leak prevention and repair requirements for HFCs.
NRDC has filed suit in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit seeking review of a rule the EPA finalised in March that withdrew a 2016 requirement for industry to detect and repair refrigerant leaks in appliances that use HFCs.
“This rollback makes no sense, except to the Trump EPA in its unrelenting drive to put polluters ahead of people,” said the NRDC’s senior strategic director in its climate & clean energy programme. “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.”
Related stories:
EPA looks to rescind HFC leak controls – 20 September 2018
USA: The US Environmental Protection Agency is looking to roll back its rules relating to HFC leak checking and is seeking comment on other rules on refrigerant recovery and refrigerant handling. Read more…
“Baffling” rollback of HFC leak rules – 27 February 2020
USA: The US EPA’s finalisation of legislation to rollback HFC leak prevention rules, has been described as “baffling” by the Natural Resources Defense Council and a “payoff to big industries”. Read more…
