In an effort to fight what is referred to as "climate change," Washington State legislators passed Bill 1112, which authorizes a rolling ban on hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants starting January 1, 2020.
It was not known whether legislators heard arguments or viewed contrary data from valid anti-climate change experts.
The bill was submitted in response to the 2017 US Appeals Court decision that found the EPA was not authorized to ban HFC refrigerants that had been approved as substitutes for "ozone depleting" substances that were being phased out in compliance with an international agreement. The California legislature recently passed a similar bill. Other states -- New York, Connecticut and Masschusetts -- are planning similar legislative action.
The bill states that hydrofluorocarbons currently represent a small proportion of the state's greenhouse gas emissions, and thus it will be easy to reduce their use and find subsititues. The legislature states in the bill that it seeks to "transition to the use of less damaging hydrofluorocarbons or suitable substitutes in various applications in Washington, in a manner similar to the regulations that were adopted by the environmental protection agency, and that have been subsequently adopted or will be adopted in several other states around the country."
HFCs will be banned for use according to the following dates and applications:
January 1, 2020: refrigerated food processing and dispensing equipment; compact residential consumer refrigeration products; polystyrene extruded boardstock and billet, and rigid polyurethane low-pressure two component spray foam.
January 1, 2022: residential consumer refrigeration products other than compact and built-in residential consumer refrigeration products.
January 1, 2023: cold storage warehouses; built-in residential consumer refrigeration products.
January 1, 2024: for centrifugal chillers and positive displacement chillers.