Connecticut, which has started developing regulations that will phase out the use of HFCs, is expected to have them ready in about a year, according to Keri Enright-Kato, director of the office of climate change technology and research in the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).
Former Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy last September directed DEEP to develop the regulations. Connecticut thereby became the fourth U.S. state to target HFCs, following California, New York and Maryland. Since then Washington state and Vermont have followed suit. (Washington governor Jay Inslee signed an HFC-reduction bill May 9.)
All of the states are members of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group of 24 governors who have pledged to address HFCs and other causes of climate change.
Connecticut has worked with other states in the Alliance to develop a “model rule based on the California experience that we all feed off,” said Enright-Kato.
California last year enacted the California Cooling Act, which established incentives for low-GWP cooling systems and adopted federal HFC rules that had been rolled back by a U.S. Court of Appeals decision in 2017.
DEEP is starting to draft its own regulations with components that will “probably be similar” to those in the model rule, though timelines “might be slightly different,” she said.
DEEP will solicit input from stakeholders who would be impacted by the legislation like food retailers, and then put together an economic impact analysis. The final step is for proposed regulations to be vetted by a regulatory review committee consisting of state legislators.
Connecticut has helped develop a “model rule based on the California experience that we all feed off.”
– Keri Enright-Kato, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
