Trump rolls back Biden-era regulations on refrigerants to lower grocery costs, save Americans $2.4 BILLION

In the Oval Office on Thursday, President Donald Trump announced that he is terminating Biden-era regulations regarding refrigerants, a move he said would lower costs, protect jobs, and save Americans over $2 billion a year.  

"Today, it's my honor to be taking a very historic action to substantially lower costs for consumers, protect hundreds of thousands of jobs, and save Americans well over $2 billion a year by officially terminating the Biden Administration’s ridiculous regulations imposing costly requirements on refrigerators and air conditioners," Trump said.

According to a White House fact sheet, the Environmental Protection Agency has finalized revisions to the Technology Transitions Rule that was adopted under the Biden administration, "to extend compliance deadlines for the use of hydrofluorocarbons, making a wider variety of more affordable refrigerants available to businesses."

The actions, the White House said, will “save Americans a total of $2.4 billion” by lowering costs linked to the regulations.  

The Technology Transitions Program placed restrictions on the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in specific sectors, such as refrigeration, air conditioning, and heat pumps. HFCs are considered greenhouse gases "that can be hundreds to thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide," per the EPA.

Trump also proposed corrections to the 2024 Emissions Reduction and Reclamation Rule that "imposed crippling leak repair requirements on virtually all existing large-scale refrigeration systems—hurting consumers and small businesses across the country. These higher costs threatened thousands of jobs and were passed on in the form of higher prices," the White House said. The changes are expected to affect refrigerated transport appliances such as trucks.

Trump was joined by figures from major grocery store chains across the country, including Kroger and Piggly Wiggly. Kroger CEO Greg Foran said, "An orderly transition of equipment reduces both capital costs and operating costs and, at the end of the day, that’s good for consumers because we’re able to take that and put that into lowering prices."

Piggly Wiggly owner Kevin McDaniel said, "We want to thank President Trump for rolling this terrible Biden legislation back because without it, there would have been a lot of independents out of business." He added, "it's just not a refrigerant change, it was an equipment change," saying that such a changeout could cost millions.

Trump said the Technology Transition Program "forced companies to adopt specific high-cost refrigerants, massively driving up the price of transporting and storing refrigerants and various goods. Many grocery stores and restaurants had no choice but to replace their refrigerators entirely. They went out of business, half of them."

"Americans faced higher grocery prices and reduced access to critical medical supplies. It was a very catastrophic thing that they did. At the same time, this rule also drove up the cost of living by forcing consumers to purchase higher cost residential air conditioning units, because they went up very substantially in cost, and also they would be obsolete very quickly."