SACRAMENTO – (INT) - The California Air Resources Board (CARB) Friday adopted a regulation prohibiting the use of specific refrigerants known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

The powerful chemicals trap heat in the atmosphere at a rate thousands of times that of carbon dioxide, the most common of the climate-changing gases.

The action was taken to preserve and continue in California some of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (U.S. EPA) prior prohibitions on HFCs.

Last year, a decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals limited U.S. EPA’s authority in this area.
“The Board’s action preserves the federal limits on the use of these powerful chemicals and refrigerants, and provides more certainty to industry,” CARB Board Chair Mary D. Nichols said

Story Date: March 27, 2018