{"id":18103,"date":"2026-05-21T19:18:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T19:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/older-ac-and-fridge-chemicals-amp-up-climate-change-trump-just-rolled-back-limits-on-them-los-angeles-times\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T19:18:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T19:18:33","slug":"older-ac-and-fridge-chemicals-amp-up-climate-change-trump-just-rolled-back-limits-on-them-los-angeles-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/older-ac-and-fridge-chemicals-amp-up-climate-change-trump-just-rolled-back-limits-on-them-los-angeles-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Older AC and fridge chemicals amp up climate change. Trump just rolled back limits on them – Los Angeles Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here<\/a>.
President Trump on Thursday announced that grocery stories and air conditioning companies will be allowed to keep using high-polluting refrigerants for longer than they would have under a law he signed during his first administration.
\u201cThis was a tremendous burden, a tremendous cost,\u201d said Trump, surrounded in the Oval Office by executives from supermarket chains including Kroger, Fairway, Neimann Foods and Piggly Wiggly. \u201cIt was making the equipment unaffordable, and the actual benefit was nothing.\u201d
The move loosens rules meant to restrict hydroflourocarbons, a class of climate-damaging chemicals used in cooling equipment. HFCs are known as \u201csuper pollutants\u201d because their impact on climate change can be tens of thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide during their shorter lifespans.
In the move Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency extend<\/a>s the deadline for companies to comply with a 2023 rule<\/a> transitioning refrigerators and air conditioners off HFCs and onto new cooling technologies. Reducing these chemicals and moving to cleaner refrigerants has long been a bipartisan issue.
Trump is also proposing exemptions<\/a> from a rule requiring leak repairs on large-scale refrigeration systems.
The administration framed the changes as part of its effort to bring down high grocery costs. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said the actions will save $2.4 billion for Americans and safeguard 350,000 jobs.
\u201cAmericans who wanted to be able to fix their equipment were instead being required to buy far more costly new equipment and that just doesn\u2019t make any sense,\u201d said Zeldin.
David Doniger, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the move will not only harm the climate, but U.S. competitiveness in global refrigerant markets as well.
\u201cThe EPA is catering to a small group of straggling companies by derailing the shift away from these climate super-pollutants,\u201d he said. \u201cThe industry at large supports the HFC phasedown and has already invested in making new refrigerants and equipment, currently installed in thousands of stores.\u201d
Danielle Wright, executive director of the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council, an environmental nonprofit, said any perceived near-term savings from the rollbacks will be outweighed by the future costs.
\u201cBusiness owners are far more worried about the escalating cost of keeping aging, high\u2011global-warming-potential equipment running than they are about the cost of installing new, compliant systems,\u201d she said.
Trump dismissed the climate concerns, saying his changes \u201care not going to have any impact on the environment.\u201d
He said he wants to get rid of the technology transition rule entirely in the future.
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Blanca Begert is a climate and energy reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
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This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. President Trump on Thursday announced that grocery stories and air conditioning companies will be allowed to keep using high-polluting refrigerants for longer than they would have under a law he signed during his first administration. \u201cThis was a tremendous burden, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}