By Jonathan Stempel<\/p>\n
July 21 (Reuters) – The Trump administration was sued on Tuesday by 18 Democratic-led states, Washington, D.C. and New York City over a new federal rule they say \u200cwould harm the climate by giving companies more time to stop using dangerous hydrofluorocarbons in \u200ccommercial refrigeration equipment.<\/p>\n
The petition filed with the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. challenges an Environmental Protection Agency decision to roll \u200bback deadlines for companies to substitute climate-friendly refrigerants for hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs.<\/p>\n
Opponents said the rule would boost harmful greenhouse gas emissions and undo part of the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, which called for an 85% reduction in HFCs by 2036.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump signed that law in December 2020, less than one month before \u200chis first White House term ended. The “Phasedown \u2060of Hydrofluorocarbons” rule is scheduled to take effect on July 27.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the EPA said its longstanding practice is not to comment on pending litigation. EPA \u2060Administrator Lee Zeldin is also named in the petition.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has scaled back a variety of environmental initiatives and standards, including by reducing support for clean energy and repealing an Obama administration-era scientific finding that climate change threatens \u200bpublic \u200bhealth.<\/p>\n
HFCs are often used in air conditioning, large refrigerators \u200band freezers found in supermarkets, and refrigeration equipment \u200cused to manufacture semiconductors.<\/p>\n
RULE SAID TO THREATEN CLIMATE PROGRESS<\/p>\n
States said one provision of the EPA rule lets supermarkets, convenience stores and bakeries continue until 2032 to use remote condensing systems whose refrigerants carry more than nine times the previously permitted global warming potential.<\/p>\n
“The EPA’s new rule would undo the progress we’ve made, and penalize companies that have complied with the law,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a webcast \u200cannouncing the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Bonta also accused Trump of “again putting industry profit \u200bover the health and well-being of American people and the \u200bfuture of our planet.”<\/p>\n
The attorneys general of \u200bCalifornia, Massachusetts and Washington state lead the petition.<\/p>\n
They were joined by the attorneys general \u200cof Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, \u200bMichigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, \u200bNew York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C., as well as New York City.<\/p>\n
In a regulatory filing, the EPA said the rule would advance its efforts to reduce the \u200bcost of living for American families, \u200cand not force companies to use technologies that make food and semiconductors cost more.<\/p>\n
It also \u200bsaid the deregulation push would further Trump’s January 31, 2025 executive order calling for “unleashing \u200bprosperity through deregulation.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jonathan Stempel July 21 (Reuters) – The Trump administration was sued on Tuesday by 18 Democratic-led states,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[114550,9759,153,18534,81000,3332,35816,114549,9,24,55,54,56,6648,25436],"class_list":["post-302171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-commercial-refrigeration-equipment","tag-d-c","tag-donald-trump","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-epa","tag-federal-appeals-court","tag-federal-rule","tag-hydrofluorocarbons","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-washington","tag-washington-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}