NY joins lawsuit on EPA refrigerant rollbacks, weakened emissions rules

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — New York Attorney General Letitia James joined a coalition of 19 other attorneys general on Tuesday to sue the federal government over a rule that weakens limits on greenhouse gases in some commercial equipment. As part of the coalition, she asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful move to delay and defang the Technology Transitions Rule.

“Congress passed a bipartisan law to reduce some of the most dangerous greenhouse gases, because the costs of inaction are simply too high,” James said in a press release announcing the lawsuit, which you can read at the bottom of this story. “The EPA cannot ignore that law and put our communities at risk.”

James argued on Tuesday that EPA’s May rule changes will increase dangerous emissions and pollution. EPA undermined Congress by violating the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020, according to the plaintiffs, which had mandated an 85% reduction in hydrofluorocarbon production by 2036.

HFCs are greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, according to EPA, at hundreds or thousands of times the rate of carbon dioxide. The lawsuit claimed that the changes from EPA, will hinder businesses that already invested in achieving cleaner technology standards.

In May, to lower costs for businesses, the EPA—under Administrator Lee Zeldin, a former New York state representative—finalized a rollback of the Technology Transitions Rule’s climate requirements. Now, manufacturers of commercial refrigerators and air conditioners have up to six more years to start phasing out hydrofluorocarbons.

That deadline was supposed to be January 1, 2026, but now, it’s January 1, 2032. According to the lawsuit, this will disrupt the market and penalize the companies in New York that already spent the money to follow the original schedules.

The plaintiffs also challenged EPA’s decision to relax restrictions on Global Warming Potential—a measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas can trap compared to carbon dioxide, which has a score of 1. Higher numbers mean dirtier chemicals.

Under the Technology Transitions Rule, the limit for new commercial refrigeration systems was 150 or 300. But EPA’s changes mean that now, and until 2032, it’s up to 1,400, so supermarkets can use higher-pollution refrigerants in their fridges. Under EPA’s new provisions, food retailers can also add up to 15% more fridge space during a remodel without it counting as a “new installation,” which would require buying cleaner equipment.

EPA set a new, temporary GWP limit of 700 for cold storage warehouses until 2032. And sites where they build semiconductors require liquids cooled to precise temperatures, sometimes with differences as small as 0.1 degrees Celsius or less. And because they’d likely face supply chain issues and need as much as five years to work on new refrigerants, EPA also extended their deadline for installing equipment that needs under 100 pounds of refrigerant from to January 1, 2030. As cited by the agency, any chip factory downtime could cost “millions of dollars per day in halted output.”

Commercial refrigeration deadlines were delayed to January 1, 2032, but for residential air conditioners and heat pumps, the EPA eliminated the deadline for installing components manufactured or imported before January 1, 2025. That means that warehouse inventory built to older standards—and that would have become illegal to sell—can still be sold indefinitely and installed legally.

In May, EPA’s notice in the Federal Register about the new deadlines, limits, and requirements reasoned that it would be too expensive for companies to comply with the previous system. According to the EPA, “For example, as supermarkets operate with extremely thin margins (1-2%), [they] are not able to internalize additional regulatory costs much and externalize those costs on customers, thereby driving up costs of food and other goods.”

EPA maintained that more lax regulations will prevent supply chain disruptions and unsold inventory while creating enough time to update building and fire safety codes for newer refrigerants. The agency warned about global economic repercussions without their tweaks.

James previously sued the federal government over similar deregulations, working to stop the federal government from erasing climate change regulations. The EPA has previously targeted the Endangerment Finding that classified greenhouse gases as a threat and moved to roll back federal water protections. And in March 2025, Zeldin froze clean energy grants.

James also targeted water safety issues by suing major chemical companies for PFAS pollution in July.

Take a look at the EPA lawsuit below:

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