The Crusade against Things That Work Is Coming for Your AC

CEI’s Ben Liberman is cited on National Review about the home appliance debate:

In an op-ed for Fox News, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Ben Lieberman has some disturbing news for Americans who hope to avoid both heat stroke and lighter wallets this summer. The Biden administration’s climate obsessives are coming for your air conditioner.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new regulations on refrigerants are having the intended effect of artificially increasing their cost and contributing to their scarcity. Lieberman writes:

Central air conditioners are already impacted while a proposed new regulation for window units is in the early stages, and in both cases the claimed climate change benefits are a big part of the agency’s rationale. Installers say central systems jumped by up to $1,000 when the new rule took effect last Jan. 1, and a total cost of $10,000 is no longer a rarity.

Not to be left out, the EPA has a new proposed regulation that would put additional upward pressure on air conditioner prices by outlawing the most affordable remaining models in 2025.

The industry targeted by these regulations, Lieberman notes, has given no indication that it opposes them. Just the opposite, in fact, because the effect of this rule is to “create a captive market for greener but costlier new models they have already conveniently developed.”

Read the full article on the National Review.