The Trump administration on Thursday loosened federal rules that required grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from cooling equipment, pitching the change as a bid to lower grocery costs and ease a business transition that the administration said was too expensive.
At a White House event, President Donald Trump said the Environmental Protection Agency action would “substantially lower costs for consumers” by delaying costly restrictions on the types of refrigerants U.S. businesses and families can use. The administration’s move relaxes rules aimed at cutting emissions from hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, emitted by refrigerators and other appliances.
The policy shift came against a backdrop of rising cost-of-living concerns. Inflation in the United States increased to 3.8% annually in April, and the Associated Press reported that price spikes have been tied in part to the Iran war and to broad tariffs put in place by the Trump administration.
Trump and the companies joining him at the ceremony framed the EPA’s change as a practical step to avoid sudden compliance burdens. The EPA action, he said, would protect hundreds of thousands of jobs and save Americans more than $2 billion a year, while also helping prevent what Trump characterized as unnecessary and costly restrictions from making equipment and servicing harder.
The Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, which represents more than 330 HVAC manufacturers and commercial refrigeration companies, said the opposite may happen. The group’s president and CEO, Stephen Yurek, said in remarks quoted by the Associated Press that extending the compliance deadline would “inject uncertainty across the market” and could raise prices, arguing it would “maintain[] and even increas[e] demand” for existing refrigerants even as supply continues to fall.
Kroger CEO Greg Foran, whose company operates 2,700 U.S. stores, told Trump that the change ensures “an orderly transition” and allows Kroger to update equipment “in a way which keeps the price of groceries down.” Foran’s comments echoed the administration’s affordability framing for the refrigerant rule shift.
Kevin McDaniel, who operates 14 Piggly Wiggly stores across Florida, Alabama and Georgia, said the Biden-era rule would have forced many independent grocers out of business. He told Trump that the earlier rule “was thrown together too fast,” saying “the technology is not there yet” and calling the timeline “terrible,” even as he said the idea had been “good.”
Environmental groups criticized the EPA’s decision as a step away from climate safeguards. David Doniger, a senior strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, called Trump’s action “a lose-lose for the environment and the economy,” saying it would harm consumers and the climate and reduce American competitiveness in global markets for environmentally safer refrigerants. Doniger said the rollback amounts to thinly veiled environmental changes that leave the country using “outdated technologies of the past.”
The Associated Press reported that Trump’s move marks a reversal from his earlier support for limiting refrigerant pollutants. In his first term, Trump signed the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, a bipartisan law that phased out HFCs as part of an international ozone-pollution effort known as the Kigali Amendment, which the administration and major business groups previously described as supporting both jobs and environmental goals. The Biden-era EPA rule being relaxed imposed steep restrictions starting in 2026, and the administration has said it did not give companies enough time, contributing to shortages and price increases.
Industry groups and food retailers had previously backed the broader transition toward alternatives to HFCs, including companies that produce alternative refrigerants. As the EPA now changes course on the HFC timetable, the Associated Press reported that it is not clear how much, or how quickly, the shift will affect grocery prices, given that manufacturers have already redesigned products, retooled factories, and trained workers for next-generation equipment.