National Environmental Development Association’s Clean Air Project v. EPA

The D.C. Circuit granted a joint motion by two trade associations for voluntary dismissal of their lawsuits challenging 2016 updates to refrigerant management requirements under Section 608 of the Clean Air Act. At the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) request, the D.C. Circuit held the proceedings challenging the 2016 rule in abeyance beginning in August 2018 while EPA considered changes to portions of the rule. In March 2020, EPA published a final rule rescinding part of the 2016 updates that extended appliance maintenance and leak detection requirements to appliances containing 50 pounds or more of certain “non-exempt” substitute refrigerants, including hydrofluorocarbons. The D.C. Circuit previously consolidated challenges to the 2020 rule with the trade associations’ challenges to the 2016 updates and also established a new docket for consideration of four issues that the two trade associations have raised in administrative petitions for reconsideration of the 2020 rule. The D.C. Circuit held this new proceeding in abeyance. Briefing in the challenges to the 2020 rule began in October, with state and municipal petitioners and Natural Resources Defense Council filing a joint brief arguing that the rescission of the appliance repair and leak detection requirements rested on an erroneous legal interpretation and that EPA acted arbitrarily and unreasonably by applying Section 608 inconsistently and disregarding prior findings. EPA’s brief is due December 15.

The motion indicated that Air Permitting Forum and Auto Industry Forum would continue to participate as intervernors in Support of the Respondent in Case Nos. 20-1150 and 20-1151.

Two trade associations filed petitions for review challenging EPA’s updates to refrigerant management requirements under the Clean Air Act. The regulations were <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-11-18/pdf/2016-24215.pdf">published</a> in the Federal Register on November 18, 2016 and went into effect on January 1, 2017. EPA said that the updates—which include strengthened leak repair requirements and recordkeeping requirements for the disposal of appliances containing more than five and less than 50 pounds of refrigerant—would result in reduced emissions of ozone-depleting substances and gases with high global warming potentials