The Energy 202: Trump’s EPA targeting rules for yet another greenhouse gas

WASHINGTON — First it was carbon dioxide, when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed in August relaxing pollution standards for coalfired power plants meant to curb emissions of that most common greenhouse gas.

Then it was methane, when both the EPA and Interior Department each took steps in recent weeks toward replacing Obama-era rules regulating the leaking of that climate-warming gas from oil and natural gas infrastructure.

Now, the Trump administration is trying to replace regulations for an even more obscure set of greenhouse gases in an effort apparently aimed at slowing down the Obama administration’s efforts to deter global warming.

The EPA recently announced it wanted to get rid of rules meant to prevent the leaking and venting of a set of organic compounds called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, from large refrigerating and air-conditioning units.

The new rule, which has yet to be finalized, is the latest in a flurry of EPA proposals over the past month or so further attempting to unwind Obama’s climate legacy. The actions – on CO2, on methane and now on HFCs – demonstrate the agency still has much of the same attitude toward climate regulations under acting administrator Andrew Wheeler, who took over the agency in July, as it did under former EPA chief Scott Pruitt.

In the case of HFCs, even tiny amounts leached into the atmosphere pack a wallop of a punch to the climate. On a pound-for-pound basis, those compounds have a warming potential thousands of times greater than that of carbon dioxide.

“This is climate vandalism,” con- tended David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “They’re just going through all these things that Obama did and trying to destroy them all.”

Some Democrats held up the proposal as yet more evidence the Trump administration is unwilling to do even the bare minimum to address climate change.

“Unfortunately, this action is yet another reminder the Trump Administration isn’t willing to take even the smallest step to address climate change or protect Americans from the threats of extreme weather,” Sen. Thomas Carper of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Environmental and Public Works Committee, said in a statement.

If the new rule goes through, large commercial and industrial appliances using HFCs will no longer need to conduct certain leak rate calculations.