The U.S Supreme Court has declined to consider a review of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s decision to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ban on HFCs. This leaves in place the decision from last year, which overturned the EPA’s directives to ban high-GWP refrigerants such as R-404A and R-410A from use in certain applications.
To recap, earlier this year, refrigerant manufacturers, Honeywell and Chemours, asked the Supreme Court to review an August 2017 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which stated the EPA could not ban HFCs through its Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program, because that program was designed only to address ozone-depleting substances. While HFCs are among the greenhouse gases suspected of contributing to climate change, they do not deplete the ozone layer.