Attorney General Bonta Files Lawsuit Challenging Trump Administration Rule That Eases Restrictions on Highly Potent Greenhouse Gases

OAKLAND - California Attorney General Rob Bonta today co-led a coalition of 19 attorneys general and one city in filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) challenging its rule that would weaken regulations designed to phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in commercial equipment. HFCs are chemicals used for refrigeration and cooling that are up to 10,000 times more potent than the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide; they are among the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions both in the United States and around the world. The rule rolls back some of the existing deadlines for industry to move from using HFCs as refrigerant gases to refrigerants with less greenhouse effect, known as Global Warming Potential (GWP). This undermines EPA's current regulations under the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act), which are designed to phase out HFCs by approximately 85% by 2036. In the petition filed today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition allege that EPA's new rule is contrary to law and that EPA fails to justify its change in position.

"Across the country, communities are enduring record-breaking temperatures, devastating floods, and raging wildfires. They are clear warnings that our planet is approaching a dangerous climate tipping point. Yet, the Trump Administration is weakening critical environmental safeguards that combat the climate crisis, including restrictions on the super pollutant hydrofluorocarbons - one of the most powerful categories of greenhouse gases driving this crisis," said Attorney General Bonta. "We're taking the Trump Administration to court, yet again, for its effort to skirt the law with this final rule. As the Trump Administration continues to bury its head in the sand at the expense of our environment, California will continue to confront the climate crisis head-on and hold the Administration accountable for breaking the law."

HFCs are widely used in commercial, residential, and mobile cooling systems, such as air conditioning and refrigeration. Once deemed a safer alternative for the environment relative to ozone-depleting substances (chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs), which damage the earth's ozone layer, HFCs were later discovered to pose a major threat to the climate. With greenhouse effects, or GWPs, hundreds to thousands of times higher than carbon dioxide over a hundred-year period, HFCs have been projected to contribute up to 0.5 degrees Celsius, about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit, to global surface warming by 2100 if they are not controlled. Because of this extreme potency, HFCs' increasing share of emissions, and their relatively short lifespan in the atmosphere, reducing consumption and production of HFCs is particularly important for addressing climate change.

In December 2020, Congress passed the AIM Act on a bipartisan basis and President Trump signed it into law. The AIM Act provides a framework through which the United States will phase out the production and consumption of HFCs by about 85% by 2036. Under the prior regulations, specific sectors that use equipment with refrigerant gases are limited to gases with lower GWP, resulting in a gradual phaseout of HFC use. For example, currently, new remote condensing systems - typically used to refrigerate food by retailers like supermarkets, bakeries, and convenience stores - are limited to using refrigerants with 150 to 300 GWP, depending on the system. With EPA's rollback, the maximum GWP of these refrigerants can increase to 1,400 from January 1, 2026, until 2032.

If allowed to move forward, the rule will increase HFC emissions, accelerating the damage already threatening our planet from climate change. In California, nine of the ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2014. As temperature continues to rise, so do the consequences: more heat-related illnesses, intensifying drought conditions, and increasingly catastrophic wildfires. The Eaton and Palisades fires recently illustrated the devastating consequences of climate change. Together, they claimed 30 lives, destroyed more than 16,000 structures, and caused an estimated $76 billion to $131 billion in damage. The conditions that made these fires so destructive are consistent with what the science has long warned us to expect from a warming climate. They underscore the urgent need to combat climate change.

In the lawsuit, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition allege that EPA's final rule is arbitrary and capricious and violates the AIM Act.

In filing the lawsuit, Attorney General Bonta co-led a coalition of attorneys general alongside Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and Washington Attorney General Nick Brown. They were joined by the attorneys general of Colorado, Delaware, Hawai'i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, and the City of New York.