United States v. Trader Joe’s Co.

The United States and Trader Joe’s Company (Trader Joe’s) filed a proposed consent decree in the federal district court for the Northern District of California to resolved alleged violations by Trader Joe’s of Clean Air Act requirements regarding leak repair and recordkeeping for commercial refrigeration equipment. The consent decree would require Trader Joe’s to pay a $500,000 civil penalty and to establish a refrigerant compliance management system, to maintain a company-side average refrigerant leak rate of 12.1% or less, and to use refrigerants with lower global warming potential values in new and remodeled stores. In its announcement of the consent decree, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that the “[t]he total estimated greenhouse gas emissions reductions from this settlement are equal to the amount from over 6,500 passenger vehicles driven in one year, the CO2 emissions from 33 million pounds of coal burned, or the carbon sequestered by 25,000 acres of forests in one year.” The Department of Justice published notice of the proposed consent decree in the June 28 issue of the Federal Register.