Unrealistic timelines and extreme compliance prices hurt grocery shops and their clients
Washington, D.C. – The Nationwide Grocers Affiliation (NGA), the main commerce affiliation for the nation’s impartial grocers and wholesalers, at the moment introduced it has petitioned the U.S. Environmental Safety Company (EPA) to revise its Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) Administration Rule due to unrealistic timelines, extreme compliance prices, and regulatory necessities that go past what Congress mandated.
NGA’s petition argues that the HFC Administration Rule imposes a number of impractical and overly burdensome necessities on meals retailers, together with drastically rising the variety of lined refrigeration home equipment and setting a leak-rate restrict that does not align with real-world methods. NGA additionally contends that the rule’s restore, testing, and retrofit deadlines are unrealistically brief, given nationwide shortages of technicians and components, and requests extra time to adjust to automated leak-detection system mandates.
“Unbiased grocers are dedicated to environmental sustainability and accountable refrigerant administration,” mentioned Max Wengroff, NGA senior supervisor of presidency relations. “However the EPA’s rule locations unrealistic obligations on retailers that merely can’t be met beneath the timelines and thresholds imposed. These pointless obligations will elevate prices for companies and households.”
The impartial grocery sector accounts for practically one-third of all U.S. grocery gross sales, greater than $250 billion yearly, and over a million jobs. NGA contends that with out cheap rule revisions, the HFC Administration Rule will impose prices that many impartial grocers merely can’t take in and will in the end be handed onto customers.
You’ll be able to learn NGA’s petition right here.
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In regards to the Nationwide Grocers Affiliation
NGA is the nationwide commerce affiliation representing the retail and wholesale neighborhood grocers that comprise the impartial sector of the meals distribution business. An impartial retailer is a privately owned or managed meals retail firm working quite a lot of codecs. The impartial grocery sector is accountable for about 1.2 % of the nation’s general financial system and is chargeable for producing greater than $250 billion in gross sales, 1.1 million jobs, $39 billion in wages and $36 billion in taxes. NGA members embody retail and wholesale grocers positioned in each congressional district throughout the nation, in addition to state grocers’ associations, producers and repair suppliers. For extra details about NGA, go to www.nationalgrocers.org.
