Phasedown of Hydrofluorocarbons: Restrictions on the Use of HFCs Under the AIM Act in Variable Refrigerant Flow Air Conditioning Subsector

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 84</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0643; FRL-11739-02-OAR]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2060-AW20</RIN> <SUBJECT>Phasedown of Hydrofluorocarbons: Restrictions on the Use of HFCs Under the AIM Act in Variable Refrigerant Flow Air Conditioning Subsector</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is amending a provision of the 2023 Technology Transitions regulations promulgated under the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020. This action provides until January 1, 2027, for the installation of certain new variable refrigerant flow air conditioning and heat pump systems which use components manufactured in the United States or imported into the United States prior to January 1, 2026. This action also provides until January 1, 2028, for the installation of certain new variable refrigerant flow air conditioning and heat pump systems if a building permit that approves the use of a hydrofluorocarbon or blend containing a hydrofluorocarbon in such a system was issued prior to October 5, 2023, provided that the system uses components manufactured in the United States or imported into the United States prior to January 1, 2026. This action will mitigate the potential for stranded inventory of variable refrigerant flow systems. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on January 13, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0643. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joshua Silver, Stratospheric Protection Division, Office of Atmospheric Protection (Mail code 6205A), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460; telephone number: (202) 564-2473; email address: <E T="03">silver.joshua@epa.gov.</E> You may also visit EPA's website at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/climate-hfcs-reduction</E> for further information. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document, whenever “we,” “us,” “the Agency,” or “our” is used, we mean EPA. Acronyms that are used in this rulemaking that may be helpful include: <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">AC—Air Conditioning</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">AHRI—Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">AIM Act—American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">The Alliance—Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">BTU/h—British thermal units per hour</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CAA—Clean Air Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CRA—Congressional Review Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">EPA—U.S. Environmental Protection Agency</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR—Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">GWP—Global Warming Potential</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">HARDI—Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">HFC—Hydrofluorocarbon</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">HVAC—Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">kW—Kilowatt</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NAICS—North American Industry Classification System</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NTTAA—National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">OEM—Original Equipment Manufacturer</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PRA—Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RACHP—Refrigeration, Air Conditioning, and Heat Pumps</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RFA—Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">UMRA—Unfunded Mandates Reform Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">VRF—Variable Refrigerant Flow</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. General Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Does this action apply to me?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. What action is the Agency taking?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. What is the Agency's authority for taking this action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. What are the incremental costs and benefits of this action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Previous Technology Transitions Rules</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. EPA's Proposal Regarding Variable Refrigerant Flow Systems</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. EPA's Final Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Final Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Avoiding Stranded Inventory</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Comments and Responses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Limiting the Environmental Impact of This Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. How do the labeling, recordkeeping, and reporting provisions apply?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Evaluation of the Subsection (i)(4) Factors</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Negotiated Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Judicial Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review and Executive Order 14094: Modernizing Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Executive Order 13132: Federalism</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Executive Order 13175: Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Executive Order 13045: Protection of Children From Environmental Health and Safety Risks</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Executive Order 13211: Actions Concerning Regulations That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions To Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations and Executive Order 14096: Revitalizing Our Nation's Commitment to Environmental Justice for All</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Congressional Review Act (CRA)</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Information</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Does this action apply to me?</HD> You may be affected by this rule if you manufacture, import, export, sell, distribute, or install residential and light commercial air conditioning and heat pump equipment. Potentially affected categories, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code, include: • New Multifamily Housing Construction (except For-Sale Builders) (236116). • New Housing For-Sale Builders (236117). • Residential Remodelers (236118). • Industrial Building Construction (236210). • Commercial and Institutional Building Construction (236220). • Plumbing, Heating, and Air Conditioning Contractors (238220). • Air Conditioning and Warm Air Heating Equipment and Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration Equipment Manufacturing (333415). • Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies (Hydronics) Merchant Wholesalers (423720). • Warm Air Heating and Air Conditioning Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers (423730). This list is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather provides a guide for readers regarding entities likely to be regulated by this action. This list includes the types of entities that the EPA is aware could potentially be regulated by this action. Other types of entities not included could also be regulated. To determine whether your entity is regulated by this action, you should carefully examine the regulatory text at the end of this document. If you have questions regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, consult the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. What action is the Agency taking?</HD> This rule provides one additional year, until January 1, 2027, for the installation of new variable refrigerant flow (VRF) systems used for residential and light-commercial air-conditioning and heat pumps when using components that are manufactured in the United States or imported into the United States before January 1, 2026. Specifically, this rule allows for pre-2026 condensing units, evaporators, and air handlers using hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and blends containing HFCs, such as R-410A, not meeting the October 2023 Technology Transitions Rule's (88 FR 73098) restrictions, to be assembled into new VRF systems ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> installed), so long as those systems are assembled prior to January 1, 2027. For projects that were issued a building permit which approved the use of an HFC or blend containing an HFC in a VRF system prior to October 5, 2023, this rule provides for installation of such systems until January 1, 2028, provided that they use components that are manufactured in the United States or imported into the United States prior to January 1, 2026. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What is the Agency's authority for taking this action?</HD> On December 27, 2020, the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act) was enacted as section 103 in Division S, Innovation for the Environment, of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (codified at 42 U.S.C. 7675). Subsection (k)(1)(A) of the AIM Act provides EPA with the authority to promulgate necessary regulations to carry out EPA's functio ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 90k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━