You Can't Do That! DC Circuit Vacates EPA's HFCs Rule

Seyfarth Synopsis: Businesses and industries that had been impacted by the EPA's HFCs rule may wish to monitor EPA's response to this opinion carefully.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals this week, by a split three-judge panel, vacated part of a 2015 EPA rule intended to target greenhouse gas emissions, saying that while Section 612 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) does require manufacturers to replace ozone-depleting substances with safe substitutes, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) do not deplete ozone, so the agency never had the power to enforce the replacement provision of the rule. "The fundamental problem for EPA is that HFCs are not ozone-depleting substances, as all parties agree." Mexichem Fluor, Inc. v. EPA, No. 15-1328, — F.3d —-, 2017 WL 3389376 (DC Cir. Aug 8, 2017).