President Donald Trump said every American family will experience a “big saving” in their grocery bills after he rolled back two Biden-era regulations on refrigerants.
With the rollback, Trump said he made more refrigerants available for supermarkets and other businesses, which he says will save $900 million.
The Daily Signal asked the president on Thursday how much the average American family will save on groceries every week due to his announcement.
“There’s going to be a big saving…” he said. “In fact, numbers are coming out this afternoon sometime.”
“But the average family will save a lot of money,” he added.
Trump said grocery stores would have closed down because they couldn’t afford to comply with the Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency rule. The 2023 Technology Transitions Rule would have phased out certain hydrofluorocarbons, used in refrigerators and other appliances.
“You will have stores closing down in areas where they’re not going to have a store anymore,” Trump said. “And you really are being forced to spend money, much more money on much more expensive equipment. That really doesn’t work.”
“This friend of mine is a very savvy guy and, you know, big league stuff,” he said. “And he put some in because he wanted to see and he said, the stuff doesn’t work. It doesn’t cool the food properly. That’s why they call the thing that we’re talking about a refrigerant for a reason. It’s a refrigerant.”
Trump said the change would give the American people “lower grocery prices, cheaper transportation of goods, lower cost of air conditioning, and no detriment at all to our country,” saying that there were no environmental costs to the rollback.
The announcement comes amid elevated prices of groceries, gas, oil, and electricity following the military operation in Iran. The Consumer Price Index for urban consumers increased 0.6% in April for all items, including increases for the indexes of five of the six major grocery store food groups. The index for energy rose 3.8% in April.
Greg Foran, CEO of Kroger, said grocery store chains are working to make sure savings from the rollback are passed down to consumers.
“We’re actually right in the middle of doing that at the moment,” he said. “So we’re concerned about the cost of living. It makes a big difference when you get your pricing right, and we certainly are interested in ensuring that all our customers right across the country are paying the right price.”
