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Climate
They're Called 'Super Pollutants'—And Trump's EPA Wants to Expose You to More of Them
"EPA owes it to Americans to put people’s health first—not give hidebound corporations more time to keep using outdated chemicals," said one critic.
May 21, 2026
In a reversal of his past position and what critics are calling yet another betrayal of his "Make America Healthy Again" campaign pledge, US President Donald Trump announced Thursday that his administration is loosening limits on so-called "super pollutant" hydrofluorocarbons used in air conditioners and refrigerators at the expense of the environment and climate.
Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin spun the move as a measure that will "save American families and businesses more than $2.4 billion" by revising "costly overreaching restrictions" imposed during the Biden administration "limiting the type of refrigerants American businesses and families can use."
"Today, the Trump EPA is fulfilling President Trump’s promise to lower costs and is fixing every problem we can under the authority Congress gave us," Zeldin said. "Our actions allow businesses to choose the refrigeration systems that work best for them, saving them billions of dollars. This will be felt directly by American families in lower grocery prices.”
Grocery prices have continued to rise during Trump’s second term, driven by the administration's erratic trade wars and actual war on Iran. Critics of Thursday's move argue that it will do little to reduce consumer costs, while increasing pollution and health risks for American families.
“It’s nice that they are paying attention to affordability, but if they want to make a difference, it’s tariffs and the Iran War," Ryan Young, a senior economist at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank, told NOTUS, estimating that the move would save consumers about $2 per year.
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are called “super pollutants” because they trap far more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, even though they are emitted in much smaller quantities. They were originally introduced to replace ozone-depleting chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that ravaged the ozone layer.
However, scientists soon realized that HFCs are extremely powerful greenhouse gases in their own right. As air conditioning use and demand grows worldwide, so has HFC use.
As the EPA's own website acknowledges on its "Operation: Disrupt HFCs" webpage:
HFCs are potent greenhouse gases... with high global warming potential. HFCs are commonly utilized as refrigerants, aerosol propellants, foam blowing agents, solvents, and fire retardants across residential, commercial, and industrial applications. The major source of HFC emissions is their use as refrigerants—for example, in air conditioning systems in both vehicles and buildings. Emissions occur during manufacturing, as well as through leaks, servicing, and disposal of equipment containing HFCs.
Former EPA Assistant Administrator Joseph Goffman said in a statement Thursday that "families are already stretched thin by high grocery bills and everyday expenses, and weakening safeguards on these super-polluting refrigerant chemicals isn’t going to change that."
"Even manufacturers are saying this delay likely won’t lower prices for consumers because supplies of these chemicals are already being phased down in favor of cleaner, innovative replacements," he added.
Stephen Yurek, president and CEO of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI)—an industry lobby—warned that the "reckless" new policy could actually cause refrigerant prices to increase.
“This rule works against basic supply and demand,” Yurek said. “By extending the compliance deadline, the EPA is maintaining and even increasing demand in the market for existing refrigerants while supply continues to fall under the AIM Act."
The American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act of 2020, bipartisan legislation signed by Trump during his first term, directed the EPA to "phase down the production and consumption of listed HFCs in the United States by 85% by 2036" and "facilitate the transition to next-generation technologies that do not rely on HFCs."
As of this year, more than 170 countries—including the United States—plus the European Union have ratified the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the main global agreement to phase down HFCs.
Yurek explained that "instead of falling, refrigerant prices are likely to rise, resulting in higher service costs, and higher costs for consumers."
Addressing the EPA's reversal on HFCs, Goffman said, "All this action does is slow the shift to cleaner technologies while risking continued releases of climate super pollutants and leaving families to face the much greater costs and health threats of dangerous climate change."
"EPA owes it to Americans to put people’s health first—not give hidebound corporations more time to keep using outdated chemicals," he added. "Americans deserve affordable groceries that don’t come at the expense of the strong safeguards they count on to keep our families safer, not sicker.”
The EPA move comes amid mounting calls by over 160 civil rights, environmental, faith, health, and labor groups to fire Zeldin over his agency's deregulation spree.
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Ocasio-Cortez Corners EPA Administrator on Water Quality Near Data Centers
Ocasio-Cortez recently met with families in Morgan County, Georgia who said a nearby Meta data center had degraded their local wells and "now rely on bottled water to drink and prepare meals."
May 21, 2026
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez on Wednesday confronted a Trump Environmental Protection Agency official about the impact of artificial intelligence data centers on Americans' drinking water.
During a hearing held by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) grilled EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Jessica Kramer about whether the Trump administration had looked into complaints from communities across the US about nearby data centers causing a decline in water quality.
Kramer indicated that she was aware of the complaints being made about data centers' water usage, but said she hadn't heard anything about their negative impact on water quality.
At this point, the New York Democrat discussed a recent trip she made to Morgan County, Georgia, where local residents said that their tap water had turned brown since tech giant Meta began building a massive data center campus nearby.
"They are clear-cutting forests and began heavy construction, including blasting," Ocasio-Cortez said. "And families in the area are starting to see not only their water pressure decrease... but their appliances have all stopped working because it is decimating their water quality. They now rely on bottled water to drink and prepare meals, and nearby residents' water bills are expected to increase by 33%."
Ocasio-Cortez then pulled out a jar of brown water that she had taken from a local tap in Morgan County to demonstrate the severe decline in quality.
"The only difference between clear water and this was that data center," she said. "This wasn't just one well. This wasn't just one family's situation. This is what the drinking water now looks like next to that data center."
EXCLUSIVE: @AOC calls for a congressional investigation into the impact of data centers.
We took her to meet residents in a Trump +50 county in Georgia whose well water was polluted by Meta’s massive data center.
“That absolutely merits...national congressional investigation." pic.twitter.com/VS7I38MzAB
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 18, 2026
Ocasio-Cortez pressed Kramer about whether the Trump EPA was planning to investigate whether data centers were causing mass degradation of water throughout the country.
"As soon as I get back into my office, I will be looking into exactly what you just talked about," replied Kramer. "Because anywhere, whatever type of construction it is, it is a priority to ensure that water quality standards established by EPA are being met. So we'll be looking into that."
Earlier this year, Ocasio-Cortez joined with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to introduce a bill that would impose a nationwide moratorium on AI data center construction "until strong national safeguards are in place to protect workers, consumers, and communities, defend privacy and civil rights, and ensure these technologies do not harm our environment."
At the same time, Leading the Future—a super political action committee backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and other AI heavyweights—is spending at least $100 million in the 2026 midterm elections to elect lawmakers who aim to pass legislation that would set a single set of AI regulations across the US, overriding any restrictions placed on the technology by state governments.
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Trump's Iran War Has Already Cost Americans Over $40 Billion Extra on Gas and Diesel
"This data shows that energy price shocks function as an economy-wide, unacknowledged tax on households, with costs comparable to large federal programs and policies," said the Climate Solutions Lab director.
May 18, 2026
An analysis released Monday by Brown University researchers shows President Donald Trump's illegal war on Iran has cost American consumers over $40 billion more at the fuel pump since late February.
Iran has responded to the US-Israeli aggression by restricting ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which has limited the trading of fertilizer and fuel. The International Energy Agency's executive director warned Monday that the world only has weeks' worth of oil reserves left.
With the trade route largely closed, including during the current ceasefire, fuel prices around the world have soared. As of Monday, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $4.515. Brown's Climate Solutions Lab and Costs of War Project have launched an online tool to track the rising costs for US consumers.
So far, according to the tool, price hikes tied to the war have cost Americans over $41.9 billion extra for diesel ($18.66 billion) and gas ($23.28 billion), based on prewar data, or an average of more than $320 per US household.
"This data shows that energy price shocks function as an economy-wide, unacknowledged tax on households, with costs comparable to large federal programs and policies," said Jeff Colgan, director of the Climate Solutions Lab, in a statement.
The new research brief from Brown highlights how that money could have been spent to improve Americans' lives. For example, that $40 billion "could pay for the entire federal Bridge Investment Program announced in 2024 to repair, restore, and modernize over 10,200 of the nation's bridges."
The full figure also exceeds "the estimated cost of completely redoing the US air traffic control system ($31.5 billion)," the brief states. It's also two times the cost of the Biden administration's proposed electric vehicle charging and electrification programs ($18.9 billion).
"Rising fuel costs are just one of the many financial costs of this war," noted Costs of War director Stephanie Savell. "Official estimates of Iran War costs are just scratching the surface of the actual burdens Americans will face because of it."
Researchers, policymakers, and other critics have been sounding the alarm about the various costs of Trump's war—including human lives lost, infrastructure damage in the Middle East, and rising prices around the world—throughout the conflict.
Earlier this month, a report from the office of US Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) projected that if gas prices remain at their current level, it will cost Americans an extra $73.06 per month, or $876 per year, to fill up just one vehicle.
An analysis published Friday from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress stressed that the increased fuel and fertilizer prices are hitting rural families and farmers—which are key to Trump's base—particularly hard.
Globally, during the first month of the war, consumers and businesses lost up to $111.6 billion due to rising fuel prices, according to the climate group 350.org—which emphasized that its estimate did not account for "wider knock-on effects, such as rising fertilizer and food costs, declines in economic output and employment, or broader inflation driven by fossil fuel price volatility."
"Over $100 billion has gone straight into the pockets of fossil fuel companies," 350.org chief executive Anne Jellema said at the time, "while families struggle to afford energy and basic necessities."
In his public comments, the president has repeatedly made clear that he does not care about how his war impacts the public. Last week, when asked about how much "Americans' financial situations" were on his mind as he tries to negotiate an end to the conflict, Trump said, "Not even a little bit."
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Trump ‘Extrajudicially’ Blocks All New US Wind Projects—Which Could Power 15M Homes Amid Energy Crisis
"Electricity costs are slamming Americans as a result of a not-so-covert Trump plan to stall or block inexpensive clean energy," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
May 08, 2026
As oil prices soar, driving up gas and electric bills and straining Americans' wallets, the Trump administration is "extrajudicially blocking" all new wind energy projects in the United States through the US Department of Defense, according to recent reports.
The Financial Times reported over the weekend that as part of the president's "crusade against renewable energy," the department had stalled approvals for about 165 onshore wind projects on private lands—including ones awaiting final sign-off, others in the midst of negotiations, and some that would not typically need oversight from the department at all, according to the American Clean Power Association (ACP).
The Associated Press then reported on Thursday that the number of blocked projects was as high as 250 and that they spanned more than 30 states.
In total, the projects could produce about 30 gigawatts of energy, enough to power 15 million American homes, according to FT.
Trump, who has called wind power the "worst form of energy" and said his "goal is to not let any windmill be built” in the US, has tried many methods to kill the industry, all of which have been struck down in court.
"His Day 1 executive order against the wind industry was found unconstitutional. Each of his stop-work orders trying to shut down wind farms was overruled. Numerous moves by his Interior Department were ruled illegal," explained Heatmap senior reporter Jael Holzman.
But she said that even amid these failures, "renewable energy industry insiders have been quietly skittish about a potential secret weapon: the Federal Aviation Administration" (FAA).
Structures over 200 feet must be approved by the FAA before construction, which involves an assessment by the Defense Department.
Holzman wrote that according to industry insiders, including those at the ACP, "the issues started last summer but were limited in scale, primarily impacting projects that may have required some sort of deal to mitigate potential impacts on radar or other military functions."
But over the past few weeks, Holzman said ACP told her that "this once-routine process has fully deteriorated, and companies are operating with the understanding FAA approvals are on pause because the Department of Defense... refuses to sign off on anything."
The group said the refusals have been indiscriminate and that they have affected projects where there are "no obvious impacts to military operations."
Tony Irish, a former career attorney for the Department of the Interior who served during Trump's first term, told Heatmap that amid continued legal failures, the administration is trying to "find ways to avoid courts altogether" and acting upon "a unilateral desire to achieve an end regardless of the legality of it, just using brute force.”
The administration's attempt to strangle the wind industry comes amid ongoing but fragile negotiations between Democrats and Republicans in Congress over permitting reforms that the GOP hopes will speed up approval of fossil fuel projects.
Democrats previously shut down talks in response to the Trump administration halting construction of several wind projects, but said they'd be open to a compromise if the administration agreed to treat renewables fairly.
Last month, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), a leader of the negotiations on the Democratic side, told Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that if any deal is to be reached, the Trump administration must create confidence that it will not "slow walk" wind and solar permits.
Heinrich told Heatmap on Thursday that the administration's apparent action to halt wind approvals entirely "undercuts their credibility and bipartisan permitting reform.”
Heatmap correspondent Matthew Zeitlin remarked: "At no point did Congress say, 'We want to make new wind power illegal.' If someone presented such a bill, it would lose overwhelmingly. But the president is pulling every possible administrative lever he has to functionally ban it."
The Pentagon acknowledged to Heatmap that it is "actively" reviewing land-based wind projects. However, the FAA declined to comment on whether it was effectively banning new wind projects. White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said the Pentagon's statement "does not confirm" that a de facto ban is in place.
Efforts to crush clean energy loom especially large amid the ongoing fuel crisis caused by Trump's war in Iran. In addition to causing gas prices to spike to about $4.50/gallon on average, wholesale electricity prices surged by 8.5% in March after the war was launched, according to The Associated Press.
Countries with large amounts of renewable energy production have proven more capable of avoiding massive spikes in energy costs, while the US has seen some of the worst in the world despite Trump's claims that "energy independence" is saving the day.
Wind energy already accounts for about 10% of America's electricity use and is often cheaper to produce in the long run than fossil fuels, not to mention better for the climate.
As high energy prices and inflation have driven the president's approval rating to its lowest level ever, Jordan Weissmann, the editorial director at the Progressive Policy Project, marveled that "Trump is actively raising voters' electric bills because he hates wind turbines."
"This isn’t energy dominance," agreed Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.). "This is sacrificing American jobs, weakening the American grid, and forcing American families to pay even higher prices."
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said that "electricity costs are slamming Americans, as a result of a not-so-covert Trump plan to stall or block inexpensive clean energy. Every blocked kilowatt of clean energy comes instead from fossil fuel. Customers' rates go way up, and all that extra cost families pay goes to (cue drumroll) Trump's corrupt fossil fuel donors. It's on purpose."
The Sunrise Movement argued that Trump's war on wind energy is quite consistent with his method of governing, which has often explicitly involved taking actions meant to maximize the profits of the fossil fuel interests that have backed him and his political movement.
"Trump's energy policy has one priority: help his Big Oil donors make a final cash grab before their industry goes extinct," the group said. "If energy prices spike and the climate crisis worsens... well, that's working people's price to pay."
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