The Trump administration on Thursday loosened federal rules that require grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cooling equipment, an Environmental Protection Agency action President Donald Trump said would help address rising grocery costs.
Trump made the case at a White House ceremony, saying the EPA step would “substantially lower costs for consumers” by delaying restrictions that limit the type of refrigerants U.S. businesses and families can use. He framed the rule change as part of an effort to respond to cost-of-living concerns ahead of the November elections.
The change targets hydrofluorocarbons, known as HFCs, used in refrigerators and other appliances. HFCs are widely described as harmful and planet-warming, and they have been the focus of U.S. and international efforts to phase them down.
It was not immediately clear how quickly, or how much, grocery prices would move as a result, industry groups said. They pointed to the fact that companies had already redesigned products, retooled manufacturing lines, and trained workers to build and service next-generation refrigerant systems.
The White House and its business allies argued that easing the Biden-era approach would protect jobs and reduce consumer costs. Trump said the EPA action would protect “hundreds of thousands of jobs” and save Americans more than $2 billion a year, while also characterizing the Biden regulations as “unnecessary and costly” and as something that “actually makes the machinery worse.”
At the ceremony, grocery executives and industry representatives also said the new path would reduce disruption for retailers. Kroger Chief Executive Greg Foran told Trump that the EPA action ensures “an orderly transition” and allows the company to update its equipment “in a way which keeps the price of groceries down,” a statement the company said it is “desperately focusing on.”
Stephen Yurek, president and CEO of the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, pushed back on that narrative, saying the rule would “inject uncertainty across the market” and could raise prices. In particular, Yurek said extending the compliance deadline maintains demand for existing refrigerants while supply continues to fall, leading to what he called “higher service costs and higher costs for consumers.”
The rule also drew sharply different reactions from environmental advocates. David Doniger, a senior strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the move “a lose-lose for the environment and the economy,” saying it would harm consumers and the climate and reduce American competitiveness in emerging global markets for “environmentally safer refrigerants.” Doniger argued that the action instead amounts to “thinly veiled environmental rollbacks” that leave the United States using “outdated technologies of the past.”
The policy shift follows a sequence that began with bipartisan action in Trump’s first term. The 2020 American Innovation and Manufacturing Act phased out HFCs as part of an international framework tied to ozone pollution, and it helped drive an industry move toward alternative refrigerants. Subsequent federal steps imposed tighter restrictions starting in 2026, and the EPA’s 2023 rule—now being relaxed—was described by the EPA administrator Lee Zeldin as insufficiently timed for compliance, contributing to last year’s shortages and price increases.
The EPA action Thursday has been described as an example of the second Trump administration’s broader effort to roll back regulations perceived as climate-friendly. Environmentalists criticized the new rule as exacerbating climate pollution while disrupting a yearslong transition to alternative coolants, rather than solving affordability concerns.
For retailers, some of the arguments focus on whether the 2026 schedule and the switch to alternative chemicals came too fast. Kevin McDaniel, whose company operates 14 Piggly Wiggly stores in Florida, Alabama and Georgia, said the Biden-era rule would have forced many independent grocers out of business. He also said the Biden approach was “thrown together too fast,” adding: “The technology is not there yet. It’s just way too fast. That’s the problem. Good idea, but it’s terrible.”
At the same time, the Food Industry Association—which represents grocery stores and suppliers—applauded the EPA’s action, with its president and CEO, Leslie Sarasin, saying the earlier rule imposed “significant costs and unrealistic compliance requirements and timelines” that threatened to drive up grocery prices and create “substantial implementation challenges” for food retailers.