Group intends to file suit against the EPA, claiming the federal agency is allowing excessive amounts of virgin and imported R-22 into the U.S. market.

 As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wraps up the comment period for its final hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC)-22 allocation rule for 2015-2019, the industry leaders who have been pushing for a more aggressive approach to the phaseout are now left to wait and see what the EPA does.  

Europe is now only a year away from a total ban on R-22 and other hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). And the European HVAC industry has to act fast to get the message across to customers.

 We’ve all heard the phrase when hell freezes over. It’s probably one of the more overused statements in the English language. Recently, while trying to figure out a way to describe a recent meeting in Washington regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rulemaking to govern the allocation of HCFC-22 (R-22) for the years 2015-2019, the phrase came to me as the only way to describe what I saw and heard. 

With all the talk about the phaseout of R-22 — with its huge range of air conditioning and refrigeration applications — one thing that seems to be often overlooked is that the refrigerant is not going away any time soon.

Europe is now only a year away from a total ban on R-22 and other hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). And Peter Dinnage warns, the HVAC industry has to act fast to get the message across to customers.

According to AHRI, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued 86 rules regulating the HVAC industry in the past 13 years. And that’s just the DOE. 

The proposal picks up on a previous timeline in production that allowed 62.8 million pounds of new R-22 in 2013 and 51 million pounds in 2014.