A new law enacted by Illinois and a similar law passed in April in New Mexico, which both authorize significant regulations of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), specifically exclude refrigerants that are deemed acceptable by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Both Illinois and New Mexico use the scientifically endorsed definition of PFAS that includes many f-gas refrigerants such as HFO-1234yf and HFC-134a, as well as their atmospheric degradation product trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). Under that definition, PFAS, which are known as “forever chemicals” for their durability in nature and include more than 10,000 substances, contain at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom.
Other HFC and HFO refrigerants falling under this definition of PFAS include HFC-125, HFC-143a, HFO-1234ze(E), HFO-1336mzz(Z) and HFO-1336mzz(E), but not HFC-32.
Exposure to longer-chain PFAS such as PFOA and PFOS has been linked to serious health issues including cancer, hormone disruption, immune system damage and developmental problems in children. In animal experiments, exposure to TFA, an ultrashort-chain PFAS, has harmed reproductive and liver functions.
At the federal level the EPA under the Trump administration is attempting to roll back many environmental regulations. In May the EPA said that it will delay enforcement on the drinking water limits for PFOA and PFOS until 2031, and it will rescind and reconsider the limits on four other PFAS. The EPA does not consider refrigerants, which have fewer carbon atoms, to be PFAS.
However, at least 24 states use the PFAS definition that includes refrigerants and many have enacted their own PFAS regulations. For example, Maine’s updated PFAS law will ban the sale of certain refrigerants, foams and aerosol propellants as well as cooling, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration equipment that contain “intentionally added PFAS” beginning in 2040. Minnesota, which passed one of the most aggressive PFAS laws in the U.S. in 2023, is engaged in rulemaking to establish a process to determine whether PFAS refrigerants and other products are “essential” to avoid prohibition in 2032.
But this year, states that have passed PFAS laws like Illinois and New Mexico have excluded refrigerants from the bills, as long as they are approved under the EPA’s SNAP (Significant New Alternatives Policy) program. For example, the SNAP program has approved HFO-1234yf, which converts completely into TFA in the atmosphere, for use in car air-conditioning and other applications. In addition, the California State Legislature decided to narrow the scope of a pending PFAS bill (SB 682) to effectively eliminate f-gases.
‘An emerging health threat’
The Illinois PFAS bill (HB2516), sponsored by Senator Julie Morrison and Representative Abdelnasser Rashid, was signed into law on August 15 by Governor JB Pritzker. HB2516 phases out the use PFAS in the manufacturing of children’s products, cosmetics, intimate apparel such as sleepwear or underwear, menstrual products, and dental floss by 2032.
“PFAS contamination is an emerging public health threat that demands immediate action,” said Morrison in a statement. “Illinois is taking meaningful and measured action to prevent further harm by pushing the industry toward safer innovation.” Neither Morrison nor Rashid responded to a query about why refrigerants were excluded from the bill.
In New Mexico, House Bill 212, or the PFAS Protection Act, phases out consumer products with intentionally-added PFAS. Starting January 1, 2027, products such as cookware, food packaging, dental floss, juvenile products, and firefighting foam are banned. On January 1, 2028, it expands to include carpets, cleaning items, cosmetics, fabrics, feminine hygiene products, textiles, ski wax and upholstered furniture. By January 1, 2032, virtually all non‑exempt products containing intentionally added PFAS are prohibited unless deemed a “currently unavoidable use” by the Environmental Improvement Board.
The New Mexico Environment Department did not respond to a query about why refrigerants were excluded from the bill.
California changes course
The chemical industry is known to have actively lobbied against the inclusion of refrigerants in other state PFAS bills.
In California, the pending PFAS bill, SB 682, still would ban the sale and distribution of specific consumer products that contain intentionally added PFAS starting January 1, 2027. But under the original version of the bill, starting January 1, 2035, it would have more broadly prohibited the sale and distribution of any other product that contains intentionally added PFAS, including PFAS f-gases, unless it was determined that the use of PFAS in the product is a currently unavoidable or essential use.
Bowing to industry pressure, legislators dropped the “essential use” portion of the bill and are proceeding with a straight ban of PFAS in cookware, cleaning products, juvenile products, food packaging, ski wax and dental floss starting January 1 of 2028, said Anna Reade, Senior Scientist and Director of PFAS Advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), who has worked with the legislature on the bill.
“I have never seen industry opposition quite like this in my career,” Reade said in a PFAS panel discussion at the ATMOsphere (ATMO) America Summit 2025, held June 11 and 12 in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference was organized by ATMOsphere, publisher of NaturalRefrigerants.com.
She later added that “even though the scope is narrower than what we initially hoped for, it is still a very good step forward to not have PFAS in these consumer products.”
Last year California’s legislature considered a bill, SB 903, that was similar to SB 682 but was not passed, in part because of perceived costs associated with it. In 2022, California enacted PFAS regulations with a narrower scope, AB 1817 and AB 2771, which banned the sale and distribution of PFAS-containing textile articles and cosmetic products, respectively, beginning January 1, 2025.
SB 903 also faced considerable chemical industry opposition. To counter that, proponents of SB 682 obtained the support of the American Sustainable Business Network (ASBN) and the California Association of Sanitation Agencies.
Reade noted that in the U.S. there have been multiple efforts at the state level, some successful, to redefine PFAS to exclude f-gases from regulations, either by changing the definition of PFAS or through an outright exemption. “The easiest way to get out of the class-based approach [to regulating PFAS] is not be considered a PFAS at all,” she said, adding, “We really need to leave the definition of PFAS based in science.”
Minnesota’s essential use approach
Minnesota’s 2023 PFAS bill is known as “Amara’s Law” in honor of Amara Strande, a young woman who advocated for the bill and spoke at the Minnesota Legislature in March 2023, a month before losing her fight with cancer linked to PFAS. The bill has already, starting this year, banned PFAS in 11 categories of new consumer products – including carpeting, cleaning products, children’s products, dental floss and cookware – sold or distributed in Minnesota. Minnesota’s Department of Health (MDH) has also initiated a toxicity review of TFA, one of the first such governmental reviews to take place in the U.S.
Unlike California, Minnesota has kept a provision to ban PFAS products, including refrigerants, that are not considered essential by 2032. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has been engaged in rulemaking is to establish criteria it will use to determine which, if any, uses of intentionally added PFAS will qualify as currently unavoidable uses because they are deemed essential for the health, safety or functioning of society.
In the case of f-gas refrigerants, many could be considered not essential because there are safer natural refrigerant alternatives. However, industry representatives have engaged in “fear mongering” about whether banning f-gases would mean “we’re not going to have refrigerators,” said Avonna Starck, Minnesota State Director of Clean Water Action (CWA), a Washington, D.C.-based NGO, in an interview in January; CWA was instrumental in passing Amara’s Law. “So we really had to educate people on what were the safer alternatives, what was happening within the realm of refrigeration.”
Industry representatives also argued that chemicals like HFOs are safer than higher-GWP f-gases. “But they’re not telling the whole truth on what happens with HFOs when they break down [into TFA],” Starck added. “And so we did a lot of educating of legislators around what HFOs are, how they’re used, what happens when they break down and how they get into our water.”
A small group of Republican lawmakers have taken to social media, pledging to dismantle Amara’s Law, Clean Water Action reported on its website in January. “We’re seeing a flurry of exemption requests, attempts to change the definition of PFAS, and various tactics to delay implementation,” Starck wrote in a blog.
In the end, the question will be whether certain f-gases and other PFAS “are needed and there are no other safer alternatives,” she said.
In comments to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the American Chemistry Council, a trade group, said it opposed “the concept of unavoidable uses” and argued that it “would establish requirements for hundreds of companies to file for exemptions to sell basic products across Minnesota,” including refrigeration and HVAC.
Regarding the potential toxicity of TFA, the fluorochemical Industry often points to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and its 2022 Environmental Effects Assessment Panel (EEAP) report. The report says that TFA is not bioaccumulative, is “not expected to pose significant risk to humans or the environment at the present time” and “is unlikely to cause adverse effects out to 2100.” At the same time, the report added that “monitoring of the environment for residues of TFA would provide an early warning if trends in concentration indicate rapid increases.”
Other regions have taken a precautionary approach to f-gases and TFA. Since 2023, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), an agency of the EU, has been evaluating a proposal from the national authorities of Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden to restrict PFAS, including f-gases and TFA. In Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), a federal agency, has invited interested parties to submit comments on the content of its latest PFAS report, which uses the PFAS definition that includes f-gases and TFA.
Image credits: Photo by Susanne Preisinger on Unsplash
