Arlington, Va. — Leaders of member companies of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) and the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy today issued a letter to the leadership of the United States Senate urging expeditious action to ratify the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. The Amendment, approved in May by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is currently awaiting floor action. The Kigali Amendment provides for a global phasedown of hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, an action AHRI and its 320 HVACR and water heating manufacturers have sought for more than a decade.

The letter informed Senate Leaders Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that ratification “will secure a position of strength for American companies in a highly competitive global market for next-generation refrigerant technologies by creating new U.S. manufacturing jobs and stimulating further investment in the U.S. economy.” It noted that “failure to ratify would close these markets to U.S. manufacturers after 2023 because the Montreal Protocol prohibits trade with countries not party to [it] or its amendments.”

If the Amendment is ratified by the Senate, the United States will join some 129 other nations as full parties to the treaty, approved in October 2016, with the United States as a signatory.