"Chemours asks in letter to the EPA for help promoting its HFO refrigerants, to stave off natural coolants that cause far less global warming."
"When executives from the Chemours Company met with top officials of the Environmental Protection Agency last year, they were seeking the Trump administration’s help to launch a new generation of chemicals and steer the nation through an important juncture. The U.S. — indeed the entire world — is in the process of phasing out chemicals used for cooling that, in a bitter twist, contribute significantly to climate change. Chemours wanted the EPA’s help not just to promote its next generation of coolants to replace the chemicals now used in refrigerators and air conditioners (among other products), but to stave off the use of more environmentally friendly options.
According to records released by the EPA in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Sierra Club, the chief executive of Chemours, Mark Vergnano, along with two of his company’s government affairs staff and an outside lobbyist, met with then-head of the EPA Scott Pruitt and several EPA staffers in May 2017 to talk about its new refrigerants, known as HFOs. Chemours, which had spun off from DuPont in 2015, had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in these chemicals, which are designed for use in supermarket chillers, ice rinks, air conditioning, freezers, and refrigerators, as it wrote in a May 2017 letter requesting the meeting with the EPA. Beyond wanting swift approval for its new products, the company was seeking help to stave off competition, asking the EPA to “help protect U.S. leadership in [the refrigerant] space and protect significant new U.S. investments the company has made.”"
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