AUSTIN, TX — The Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) has asked the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) to withdraw a proposal to require use of an unproven “ozone-conversion” process that reduces the efficiency of central air conditioners and heat pumps — at a substantial cost to Texas homeowners and businesses.
In a statement presented to the TNRCC at its meeting Aug. 9, ARI said the commission was “under tremendous pressure” from the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to mandate that most central air conditioners and window units sold in Texas after Jan. 1, 2002, be equipped with a “catalytic slurry” that ARI said could be “toxic to factory workers, installation and maintenance technicians, and consumers.”