ATLANTA — The Environmental Protection Agency is targeting mid-2012 as the earliest point at which a proposed amendment to Section 608 of the Clean Air Act — which regulates leak repair for commercial refrigeration — would take effect, said Keilly Witman, manager of the EPA’s GreenChill Partnership.
The proposal, announced last December, would lower the leak repair "trigger rate" — when retailers are required to fix refrigerant leaks from a 35% annual leak rate to 20%.
The food retailing industry has submitted comments to the proposal, and the EPA is now responding to those comments and developing the final rule. It will then be subjected to a broader review by the EPA and other federal agencies before being published in the Federal Registry and taking effect.
Speaking yesterday at the Food Marketing Institute’s Energy & Store Development Conference here, Witman invited retailers to contact her for updates on the rule, acknowledging that "a lot of people are nervous about when this is going to hit." She noted that stores will have "a certain amount of time" to make any changes in their refrigeration systems after the rule is published.
