TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport has joined a coalition of 20 attorneys general in suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a rule that the states say weakens regulations governing hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, a class of greenhouse gases used in air conditioning and refrigeration systems.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, challenges an EPA rule that extends deadlines for industries to transition to refrigerants with lower global warming potential.
According to the lawsuit, the rule weakens regulations established under the bipartisan American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2020. The law is intended to phase down the production and consumption of HFCs by approximately 85% by 2036.
“New Jersey is one of the fastest-warming states in the country, and this proposed rollback is nonsensical, especially given that President Trump himself supported the transition to less harmful chemicals just six years ago,” Davenport said. “Our residents and businesses want a safer, stable environment, not drought, wildfires, worsening floods, and severe storms that threaten our lives and our properties. We are asking the Court to set aside EPA’s dangerous new rule.”
HFCs are commonly used in commercial, residential and mobile cooling systems. According to the attorney general’s office, the chemicals can have a global warming effect up to 10,000 times greater than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide and are among the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
The coalition argues the EPA’s rule allows some commercial refrigeration equipment, including remote condensing units used by supermarkets, bakeries and convenience stores, to continue using refrigerants with significantly higher global warming potential until Jan. 1, 2032. Under the previous regulations, those systems would have been required to transition to less harmful refrigerants beginning Jan. 1, 2026.
The lawsuit alleges the EPA’s final rule is arbitrary and capricious and violates the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act.
Joining New Jersey in the lawsuit are California, Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia and the City of New York.
