USA: The row over the US Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to roll back parts of the AIM Act rumbles on, with retailers now seeking to intervene in recently filed judicial review petitions.
The announcement by the EPA in May to roll back the maximum 150 GWP limit for refrigerant in retail refrigeration equipment to 2032 was met with condemnation by both HVAC manufacturers, environmental groups and a number of US states.
At the beginning of this month, the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) and the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy filed a petition for judicial review of the decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, claiming that the EPA had not followed required procedures. Groups representing US contractors also challenged the rule, claiming that the amended provisions violated the AIM Act and threatened to destabilise the refrigerant market.
These were followed by a petition from 19 attorney generals and one city alleging that the EPA’s new rule is contrary to law and that the EPA fails to justify its change in position.
Retailers are now seeking to intervene in the consolidated challenges to an EPA rule. The Retail Litigation Center (RLC), together with Food Marketplace Inc (FMI), the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI), and the National Grocers Association (NGA) have filed a motion defending the rule’s extended compliance deadlines.
The claim that the new deadline provides supermarkets, grocers, and other food-industry businesses additional time to transition to compliant refrigeration systems.
The associations maintain that installing a compliant system on an expedited timeline could impose approximately $1.7m in incremental capital costs on an average-sized grocery store and reduce its annual net income by 22%. They claim that the prior compliance timelines were “unachievable and impose[d] significant costs on the food industry.”
