RLC Moves to Defend Practical Refrigeration Compliance Deadlines for Retailers

The Retail Litigation Center (RLC), together with Food Marketplace, Inc. (FMI), the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI), and the National Grocers Association (NGA), filed a motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seeking to intervene in the consolidated challenges to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule governing hydrofluorocarbons used in commercial refrigeration. The associations seek to defend the rule’s extended compliance deadlines, which provide supermarkets, grocers, and other food-industry businesses additional time to transition to compliant refrigeration systems.  The extended compliance timelines reflect those recommended in comments filed by the RLC’s sister trade association, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), in November 2025.

The associations’ supporting analysis found that installing a compliant system on an expedited timeline could impose approximately $1.7 million in incremental capital costs on an average-sized grocery store and reduce its annual net income by 22 percent. As the motion states, the prior compliance timelines were “unachievable and impose[d] significant costs on the food industry.”

RLC’s membership includes retail grocers and supermarkets that are the direct objects of the EPA rule. “Retail grocers and supermarkets need regulatory certainty and realistic compliance timelines to continue serving consumers,” said Monica Welt, President of the Retail Litigation Center. “The EPA’s rule extending deadlines for compliance reflects practical realities facing the food retail sector, and RLC is proud to support its defense in court.”

RLC is represented by Elbert Lin, Erika Maley, and Erica N. Peterson of Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, Matthew Z. Leopold and Aaron Aber of Holland & Knight, and Matthew W. Morrison and Mark Talty of Baker Botts LLP.

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Media Contact: press@rila.org

Directed by the chief legal officers of the country's leading retail companies, the Retail Litigation Center (RLC) is the only organization dedicated to advocating for the industry's top priorities in the federal and state judiciary. The RLC also works with leading law firms and retail corporate counsel to develop forward-thinking strategies to combat meritless mass action litigation. Founded by the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) in 2010 as an independent organization, the RLC is a 501(c)(6) membership association open to all retailers and select law firms.