Press Release: 7/22/2026
AG Campbell Challenges Trump Administration Rule That Weakens Regulation Of Highly Potent Greenhouse Gas
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
7/21/2026
BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell today co-led a coalition of 19 attorneys general and New York 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 the climate super-pollutants hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in commercial equipment.
HFCs are chemicals commonly used in refrigeration and cooling systems that are up to 10,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and they are among the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions both in the United States and around the world. The Trump Administration’s rule delays deadlines for industries to transition from HFCs to refrigerants with lower climate-warming properties, known as Global Warming Potential (GWP). This undermines EPA’s obligations under the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act), which phases 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, AG Campbell and the coalition petition the Court to review EPA’s new rule.
“Many Massachusetts families are already struggling with the high cost of living, and the effects of climate change, like wildfire smoke, are impacting our daily lives. Yet the Trump Administration is delaying the transition to cleaner refrigerants in favor of more polluting alternatives. That decision will increase the cost of cooling our homes, increase costs for businesses that may ultimately be passed on to consumers, and exacerbate climate change and its harmful effects on Massachusetts residents,” said AG Campbell. “I will continue fighting to protect Massachusetts consumers, defend our public health and welfare, and hold the federal administration accountable for unlawful actions.”
HFCs are widely used in commercial, residential, and mobile cooling systems, such as air conditioning and refrigeration equipment. Although they were originally introduced as an environmentally safer alternative to ozone-depleting substances (chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs), it was later determined that HFCs have an extremely high GWP and pose a major threat to the climate. HFCs can trap hundreds to thousands of times more heat than carbon dioxide over a hundred-year period, and, if left unchecked, are projected to contribute up to 0.5 degrees Celsius (about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) to global surface warming by 2100. Because of their extreme potency and HFCs’ increasing share of emissions, reducing consumption and production of HFCs is particularly important for addressing climate change.
In December 2020, President Trump signed the bipartisan AIM Act 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. That law limits production and imports of HFCs in the United States to declining amounts of historic baseline levels - 60 percent today, declining to 30 percent in 2029, and 15 percent in 2036. The law requires EPA to help industry transition to a lower supply of these gases by setting limits for sectors with more readily available alternatives to protect costs and supply for those sectors that will take longer to transition. That common-sense phase out is what the prior Technology Transitions rule — which the challenged rule rescinds — accomplished: it required specific sectors that use refrigerants to, when installing new equipment, install equipment that uses gases with lower GWP.
For example, under the prior Technology Transitions rule, new remote-condensing units—typically used to refrigerate food by retailers like supermarkets, bakeries, and conveniences stores—were limited to using refrigerants with 150 to 300 GWP, depending on the system. With EPA’s rollback, new remote condensing units could use refrigerants with 10 times greater global warming potential (up to 1,400 GWP) until January 1, 2032.
If allowed to move forward, the rule will increase HFC emissions, accelerating the damage already threatening our planet from climate change. Further, by undermining the parallel reduction in HFC supply and demand, the rule threatens to cause shortages and price spikes in the HFC market that will increase the costs of servicing home air conditioners as well as supermarket refrigeration systems.
In the lawsuit, AG Campbell and the coalition will argue that EPA’s final rule is arbitrary and capricious and violates the AIM Act.
This case is only the latest example of AG Campbell’s leadership in ensuring that the federal government does not step back from its legal obligations to fight the threat of climate change. Among other things, AG Campbell is also co-leading a multistate challenge to the EPA’s rescission of its seminal 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and the agency’s repeal of all current and future motor vehicle greenhouse gas standards.
The lawsuit was led by Massachusetts Attorney General Campbell, California Attorney General Bonta, and Washington Attorney General 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 New York City.
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