Trump’s refrigerant rollbacks likely won’t cut grocery prices

Trump refrigerant – The Trump administration says it is rolling back Biden-era EPA refrigerant rules to lower grocery costs and other household expenses. Two Purdue professors and a cost breakdown they provided suggest the savings—if passed through—would be too small to meaningfu

When the Trump administration ended a Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency refrigerant rule on May 21, it came with a promise: lower grocery costs, reduced shipping expenses, and smaller air-conditioning bills.

The White House tied the move to expanded availability of refrigerants used in freezers, refrigerators and air-conditioning systems. It estimated the changes would generate $900 million in savings, including $800 million from lower grocery costs.

But after the announcement, the question didn’t center on whether the paperwork changed. It centered on whether shoppers would actually feel it at the register.

The administration’s first step, also on May 21, overhauled parts of two Biden-era EPA rules for refrigerants. One action delayed deadlines for grocers and other companies to phase out climate-damaging hydrofluorocarbons under the 2023 Technology Transitions Rule. The White House said the delay would increase the pool of refrigerants available to supermarkets, homeowners and other businesses.

In parallel, the EPA also took steps to amend a 2024 program to exempt all road refrigerant appliances used to transport goods from new leak requirements for hydrofluorocarbons. The White House projected that change would bring $1.5 billion in savings.

Industry leaders were in the room for the announcement on May 21. No grocer has made binding commitments to pass savings to shoppers, but Kroger CEO Greg Foran said his company “is right in the middle of doing that at the moment.”

Still, Purdue’s Bernhard Dalheimer said the arithmetic behind the promise doesn’t line up with a noticeable impact on grocery prices.

“This rollback is unlikely to translate into meaningful grocery price relief for consumers, at least not in any near-term or measurable way,” Dalheimer, assistant professor of macroeconomics and trade in Purdue University’s Department of Agricultural Economics, said.

Dalheimer’s point was straightforward: from the standpoint of the food supply chain. the Biden-era rules were aimed at a one-time investment—capital costs tied to equipment upgrades for commercial refrigeration systems. By pushing compliance deadlines back. the policy reduces a future expense for companies that haven’t already invested. he said—but it doesn’t unwind costs embedded in today’s grocery prices.

“Rolling back the compliance deadlines means grocers and cold-chain operators who have not yet invested in new equipment are off the hook for now. That avoids a future cost, but it does not reduce any cost that is currently embedded in grocery prices,” Dalheimer said.

In his view, shoppers are paying today’s prices because energy, labor, transportation and commodities are pressuring costs—not because grocers were bracing for refrigerant upgrade spending down the road.

To test the scale of the potential relief, Dalheimer’s colleague, Joseph Balagtas, a professor in agricultural economics at Purdue, broke down what savings could look like even under a best-case scenario where grocers pass through 100% of the rules-change savings.

Balagtas used a figure of $48 million per year in savings from the delayed compliance cited in an EPA memo about the new rules. He said dividing that amount across a U.S. population of 340 million works out to 14 cents per person or 56 cents a year for a family of four.

“So the cost savings for a family of four amounts to a couple bananas,” Balagtas said. “The best case scenario is that this regulator action will have an imperceptible effect on the affordability of groceries.”

Food prices have already become a political and consumer stress point, with households facing sticker shock. The refrigerant rollback landed amid that reality—and the gap between policy savings and grocery affordability stayed wide in the professors’ view.

The Food Industry Association, FMI, responded sharply to the administration’s move. In a statement. the group applauded the Trump administration’s actions. saying they would prevent increases in costs for grocers and consumers. FMI said the revisions to the Technology Transitions Rule and the reconsideration of the Management Rule preserve the agency’s goals without “placing unnecessary financial burdens on the food industry and grocery shoppers.”.

FMI also pointed to an economic analysis that it said showed the combined Technology Transitions Rule and Management Rule “could impose nearly $144 billion in total costs on American businesses and consumers. ” describing it as equivalent to an economic burden of more than $1. 000 per American household.

Taken together, the debate over the refrigerant rollback is not about whether it changes compliance timelines. It’s about what those changes can realistically do to prices that already reflect other cost pressures.

The administration is estimating major savings in dollars. But if the relevant savings that reach grocers are measured in small increments relative to household budgets. the impact may stay too modest to move grocery prices in any near-term. measurable way—leaving the May 21 promise with a clear gap between government projections and what shoppers can count on.

Trump administration EPA refrigerant rules grocery prices Purdue University hydrofluorocarbons Technology Transitions Rule FMI Kroger Greg Foran food industry costs