Trump Targets Climate Rule on Refrigerants to Lower Grocery Bills

As Americans continue to face high grocery bills, President Donald Trump said Friday he was rolling back environmental rules laid out by the Biden administration on chemicals used in refrigerators and air conditioners, saying this would cut costs.

The restrictions were, in fact, a result of a 2020 bipartisan law Trump signed that year aimed at so-called “super pollutants” because of their effects on climate change, but the president said the new limits had driven up business costs, impacting consumers.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin said the HFC requirements, finalized in 2023, would be relaxed for grocery stores, AC companies, and semiconductor plants, potentially opening up $2.4 billion in savings.

"The Administration's weakening of the HFC rule will actually harm American consumers,” Dan Howells, Green America's Climate Campaigns Director, said in a statement given to Newsweek on Friday. “HFCs are super pollutants that ramp up the climate crisis that increases the extreme weather.”

Will Grocery Bills Be Lower? What To Know

While the 2020 law aimed at tackling climate change was seen as a rare moment of bipartisan success, Trump has shown increasing skepticism over the issue and has rolled back other key environmental protections during his second term.

On Thursday, surrounded by executives from grocery store companies, including Kroger, the president said the rules had resulted in higher prices and higher taxes.

“Today’s reforms will deliver significant financial relief,” Trump said. “The American people will have lower grocery prices, cheaper transportation of goods, and lower cost of air conditioning, at no detriment to our country. Zero. Including environmental detriment.”

Kroger’s chief executive, Greg Foran, also said the easing of the rules would mean customers finding savings, although he did not give details on when that would be seen.

Howells told Newsweek that the savings touted by the White House would have little impact if HFC use were allowed to continue at the same rate, thereby adding to climate change.

“Extreme weather is already damaging harvests and driving up food prices and will increasingly do so. Refrigerants are a small cost in the food supply chain, they are not driving up the cost of food,” Howells added. “In addition to the extreme weather increased by climate pollutants, rising food costs are the result of tariffs, and soaring food costs.”

American Grocery Prices Remain High, Voters Blame Trump

The Iran war has pushed up costs, but sticky inflation in several food staples was straining American household budgets even before the strikes began in February.

According to the latest Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), annual headline inflation rose from 3.3 percent in March to 3.8 percent in April, reaching its highest level across both of Trump's terms.

The energy index has risen 17.9 percent since April 2025, with food up 3.2 percent. Within the latter category, food at home-the amount paid for groceries-rose 0.7 percent in April for the largest one-month increase since early 2022, while hitting 2.9 percent on an annualized basis.

Everyday cost pressures continue to be a problem for the president and his administration, despite Trump’s claims last week that he did not think about Americans’ financial situations, having campaigned heavily on the idea of bringing down the cost of living. A poll from CNN and SSRS, released May 12, found that 77 percent of Americans, including 55 percent of Republicans, blame Trump's policies for increasing the cost of living.

What Are HFCs?

On Thursday, the Trump administration set its latest target for deregulation: hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. These are a group of man‑made chemicals primarily used as refrigerants-the substances that enable cooling systems such as refrigerators, freezers, and air conditioners to work.

They were widely adopted in the 1990s and 2000s as replacements for older chemicals found to damage the ozone layer. While HFCs don't deplete the ozone layer, they have another drawback: they are extremely potent greenhouse gases, with some having a global warming impact hundreds or even thousands of times stronger than carbon dioxide.

HFCs play a central role in the modern food system, particularly in what's known as the "cold chain"-the temperature-controlled supply network that keeps food safe from production to consumption.

The Biden administration sought to implement the 2020 AIM bill by reducing HFC use by 85 percent by 2036, a deadline Zeldin said did not give companies enough time to act.

"Americans were right to be frustrated with the Biden-era refrigerant rules. They didn't protect human health or the environment and instead piled on costly, unattainable restrictions beyond what the law requires," Zeldin said in a press release. "Today, the Trump EPA is fulfilling President Trump's promise to lower costs and is fixing every problem we can under the authority Congress gave us.

“Our actions allow businesses to choose the refrigeration systems that work best for them, saving them billions of dollars. This will be felt directly by American families in lower grocery prices."

Howells disagreed with this claim, telling Newsweek that the Biden-era rule was “a carefully considered rule supported by industry that was pursuant to bipartisan legislation. The existing rule was a common sense approach to phasing out harmful refrigerants that benefits us all. Weakening it will only increase harms to the environment and consumers."

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This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 3:52 PM.