08-31-2016

Obama Expands Efforts To Reduce Refrigerants

Earth.com staff writer

Obama Expands Efforts To Reduce Refrigerants. President Barack Obama is ordering new steps to reduce refrigerants that contribute to climate change as he works to secure a global climate treaty.

The Obama administration is proposing to extend rules targeting emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals to refrigerants called hydrofluorocarbons. Obama Expands Efforts To Reduce Refrigerants

The White House said Thursday the rules will be finalized next year.

The Environmental Protection Agency also plans to prohibit more uses of hydrofluorocarbons under new deadlines coming in 2016. The Obama administration is pushing to phase out the potent heat-trapping gases globally.

The White House is also announcing nearly $15 million in grants for communities hit hard by the Obama-backed shift away from coal. Almost all of the funds are for programs in Kentucky.

Obama hopes to build momentum on climate change before international talks conclude in December.Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, he enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black person to be president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Turning to elective politics, he represented the 13th district from 1997 until 2004 in the Illinois Senate,