Leslie is still on vacation, so I guess I’ll grab the EPA finalizing the rule to limit hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are used in air conditioners and refrigerators.
In 2016, Leslie wrote that HFCs are “chemicals comprised of hydrogen, carbon, and fluorine atoms.”
From the press release (emphasis mine):
The United States began this historic phasedown on January 1, 2022, with a reduction of HFC production and imports to 10% below historic baseline levels. Since then, allowances are needed to import and produce HFCs. Starting in 2024 the phasedown will be 40% below historic levels, a significant decrease in the number of available production and consumption allowances compared to previous years. HFC allowances for calendar year 2024 will be allocated by September 29, 2023. The phasedown schedule under this program is consistent with the schedule laid out in the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which the United States ratified in October 2022.In addition to setting up an allowance allocation program, the HFC Phasedown Program has established robust enforcement mechanisms to ensure a level playing field for U.S. companies complying with the phasedown requirements. Since January 2022, the Interagency Task Force on Illegal HFC Trade, co-led by EPA and the Department of Homeland Security, has prevented illegal HFC shipments equivalent to more than 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) at the border, which is equivalent to the CO2 emissions from over 206,000 homes’ electricity use for one year.
A 2020 rule (yes, passed under Trump) demands an 85% reduction of HFCs by 2036.
If you don’t listen to Daddy EPA, the agency will punish you for illegal HFC trade:
The EPA rule includes a range of administrative penalties, including license revocation and retirement of allowances for companies that don’t comply. Fines and criminal penalties also can be imposed. EPA said it has finalized administrative consequences retiring more than 6.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent for 2022 and 2023 for companies that misreported data or imported HFCs without required allowances.Since January 2022, an interagency task force on illegal HFC trade, led by EPA and the Department of Homeland Security, has prevented illegal HFC shipments equivalent to more than 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide at the border, officials said. That is the equivalent to carbon emissions from more than 200,000 homes for one year.
The EPA has been targeting HFCs for a while. Leslie brought the war on HFCs to light in 2016: Climate Alarmists Target New “Greenhouse Gas” in Latest Deal
Leslie blogged in 2018 that SCOTUS rejected an appeal to review a DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that limited the EPA. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that original ruling.
The ruling overturned the EPA rule on HFC. Kavanaugh claimed the government could not “regulate the gas under the Clean Air Act.”
Leslie noted that environmentalists wanted everyone to use HFCs instead of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) because the latter destroyed the ozone.
But the ozone is healing which means CDCs are okay.
Hence the war on HFCs. Leslie concluded in her piece:
Any agency that wants to deem life-essential carbon dioxide as a “climate pollutant” can no longer be allowed to create legislation out of whole cloth and fake science. This SCOTUS decision is a victory for sensible science and constitutional principles.
But then, in 2020, the Senate compromised on a greenhouse gas amendment that stalled a bipartisan energy bill.
The senators who wanted the amendment? Republican John Kennedy and Democrat Tom Carper: “The compromise amendment, like the initial provision from Carper and Kennedy aims to reduce the use of these gases over a 15-year period. It would require the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement an 85 percent reduction of HFC production and consumption as compared to the average annual levels from 2011 to 2013.”
Trump’s White House and Republican Sen. John Barrasso criticized the amendment “because it did not include language that would have preempted states from setting their own stricter HFC standards.” They wanted to avoid any “uncertainty for manufacturers.”
Yay government.
And you guys wonder why I cannot stand Democrats or Republicans. They all love Big Government.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY