Major Climate Win Scored With Quiet, Diverse Lobbying Campaign

A coalition of environmentalists, industry groups, and lawmakers quietly worked across the aisle for years to enact a historic phasedown of greenhouse gas emissions that supporters believe is the most important climate change policy to emerge from the 116th Congress.

The year-end $1.4 trillion spending package Congress passed late Monday includes language that would direct the Environmental Protection Agency to implement an 85% phasedown of hydrofluorocarbon production and consumption over the next 15 years. HFCs, chemicals found in air conditioning and refrigeration, are powerful greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

“It is a big accomplishment,” said David Doniger, senior strategic director of the climate and clean energy programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who has worked on the issue for more than 30 years. “It’s the biggest step this Congress will have taken on climate change.” Even with the separate clean energy and efficiency measures included in the omnibus, Doniger said, the HFC language is “the only actual limitation on greenhouse gases.”

Scientists have said eventually eliminating the use of HFCs could shave a half degree Celsius of warming from the Earth’s temperature by 2100, which they’ve estimated is headed toward 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, ideally to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

But the effort behind the legislation was not just driven by climate considerations.

The legislation will help create and sustain American jobs and manufacturing for products like air conditioners and refrigerators that have become more energy efficient and climate-friendly, said Stephen Yurek, president and chief executive officer of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute. Yurek said the industry was “constantly trying to say, ‘this is not just a climate bill.’ The benefit is climate, but it’s really a jobs and economics bill.”

The group has been involved for more than a decade in the lobbying effort to get Congress to enact an HFC phasedown. But it took an alliance of diverse groups to finally bring Democrats and Republicans together on the issue, Doniger said. “When you have a coalition that runs from us to the Chamber of Commerce, that’s an achievement.”

Kigali Amendment

The 2016 Kigali amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol was an international agreement to scale down HFCs, which for decades have been used as a substitute for more dangerous and potent chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. The Montreal Protocol phased out the use of CFCs, which had contributed to a hole in the ozone layer.

But the Senate hasn’t moved on Kigali because the White House hasn’t submitted it. So, a diverse set of outside groups pushed Congress to pass legislation clarifying EPA’s authority to phase down HFCs, Doniger said. “The industry-environment coalition that supported the treaty worked together to design and promote this legislation,” said Doniger. “Because of industry support, it has had considerable bipartisan support.”

A group of 13 Republican senators in 2018 sent Donald Trump a letter urging the president to send the Kigali amendment to the Senate for approval.

“The Kigali amendment is projected to increase U.S. manufacturing jobs by 33,000, increase exports by $4.8 billion, and improve the heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration industry (HVACR) balance of trade,” the senators wrote. “The failure to ratify this amendment could transfer our American advantage to other countries, including China, which have been dumping outdated products into the global marketplace and our backyard.”

Treaty ratification requires two-thirds of the Senate to approve of a resolution by ‘advice and consent.’ Then the president empowers, or ratifies, the treaty by signing it. But the senators’ effort failed to prompt the president to even submit the measure to the Senate for consideration.

‘Quiet Is Always Better’

In addition to NRDC and AHRI, groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, Greenpeace, and the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, supported congressional action to scale down use of HFCs. The lobbying campaign they mounted started to gain momentum by late 2019.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member Tom Carper (Del.) and Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) sponsored legislation authorizing the 15-year drawdown of HFCs in November 2019. Reps. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), Scott Peters (D-Calif.), Pete Olson (R-Texas), and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) introduced a similar bill earlier this year with robust bipartisan support.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, expressed concern with some of the regulatory aspects of the legislation. Barrasso and the White House opposed the original legislation, in part, because they wanted language ensuring states couldn’t implement stricter phasedown standards than the federal government, resulting in a patchwork of regulations creating uncertainty for manufacturers and consumers.

Barrasso’s opposition sidelined the issue in March, along with a separate energy innovation package that was also eventually revived and included in the omnibus. Barrasso, Carper, and Kennedy reached an agreement on HFC phasedown in September, which eased its path for inclusion in the year-end spending package.

The final agreement would preempt state and local government from regulating HFCs for “congressionally-designated essential uses” for five years. The EPA can extend that to a maximum of 10 years if an HFC-substitute hasn’t emerged.

The agreement meant Republicans and Democrats could take credit for enacting the phasedown.

“More than ever, foreign competition demands we protect American jobs by keeping the U.S. competitive in global industry,” said Kennedy, whose state is home to several air conditioning and refrigeration manufacturers. “Investing in next-generation refrigerants will create thousands of jobs, save billions of dollars and safeguard the environment, all of which matter deeply to Louisianians.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also praised the inclusion of the agreement, with Schumer calling it one of the “significant wins” when it comes to fighting climate change.

Yurek said the coalition’s success stemmed from an “old-fashioned” lobbying campaign that involved meetings with stakeholders and “moving it forward quietly, efficiently and effectively, versus grandstanding.”

“Being quiet is always better, especially in D.C. But most people in D.C. and other places, being quiet is not what a lot of people like to do,” Yurek added. “We did it more understated, and it just worked.”

This isn’t the end of the road for Kigali. Yurek, whose group supports ratification of the amendment, said he thinks “when the time is right” the Biden administration will put it forward.

“I think it does have a really high probability of being ratified sometime this Congress over the next two years.”