The EPA is allowing manufacturers to use larger amounts of climate-friendly chemicals in household refrigerators and freezers—eliminating what industry has long identified as a barrier to limiting potent greenhouse gas refrigerants.
The Environmental Protection Agency rule, to be published Aug. 8 in the Federal Register, will allow household appliance manufacturers to use more than double the amount of climate-friendly replacements for a common hydrofluorocarbon, or HFC, refrigerant. HFCs are greenhouse gases hundreds of times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Household refrigeration makers, such as Whirlpool Corp. and Samsung Electronics America Inc., have long ...