San Diego Man First Ever Person Charged With Smuggling Greenhouse Gases Into America
Michael Hart of San Diego smuggled hydrofluorocarbons from Mexico to America.
Leslie is on vacation again when hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) make the news!
The DOJ charged Michael Hart of San Diego, CA, with smuggling greenhouse gases and selling them for profit.
I kid you not. Hart is the first person in the nation to face charges “related to the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act). The AIM Act prohibits the importation of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), commonly used as refrigerants, without allowances issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).”
“The illegal smuggling of hydrofluorocarbons, a highly potent greenhouse gas, undermines international efforts to combat climate change under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol,” said David M. Uhlmann, EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “Anyone who seeks to profit from illegal actions that worsen climate change must be held accountable. This arrest highlights the significance of EPA’s climate enforcement initiative and our efforts to prevent refrigerants that are climate super pollutants from illegally entering the United States.”
From the DOJ press release:
The indictment alleges that Hart purchased refrigerants in Mexico and smuggled them into the United States in his vehicle, concealed under a tarp and tools. According to the indictment, Hart posted the refrigerants for sale on OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace and other sites, and sold them for a profit. In addition to greenhouse gases, the indictment alleges Hart imported HCFC 22, an ozone-depleting substance regulated under the Clean Air Act.
Hydrofluorocarbons
Hydrofluorocarbons. HFCs. I know I’ve read about those before. Oh, yes! Our brilliant scientist Leslie has written about them before.
Leslie explained that HFCs have become “an alternative to chlorofluorocarbons in foam production, refrigeration, and other key industrial processes.”
That’s because chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are too stable. According to Leslie, the CFCs “can survive in the atmosphere long enough to eventually reach the ozone layer,” where “they break down in sunlight and destroy ozone in the process.”
Leslie first wrote about HFCs in 2016 when climate alarmists needed a new target after they got their way with the Paris Accords.
Apparently, HFCs are “the world’s fastest-growing climate pollutant and are used in air conditioners and refrigerators.”
The agreement reached in 2016 placed caps on HFCs and reduced the gas beginning in 2019.
Leslie pointed out that the ozone layer has started closing up, which means the alternative, the HFCs, worked. So yeah…let’s ban the alternative that WORKED.
In 2017, when Justice Kavanaugh sat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, he authored a decision that struck down the EPA rule on HFCs. In 2018, SCOTUS declined to hear a lawsuit challenging that ruling.
But then, in 2020, the Senate compromised on a greenhouse gas amendment that stalled a bipartisan energy bill.
The senators who wanted the amendment? Republican John Kennedy and Democrat Tom Carper: “The compromise amendment, like the initial provision from Carper and Kennedy aims to reduce the use of these gases over a 15-year period. It would require the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement an 85 percent reduction of HFC production and consumption as compared to the average annual levels from 2011 to 2013.”
In July 2023, the EPA issued its final rule on HFCs. The new rules included punishing those who take part in the illegal HFC trade:
The EPA rule includes a range of administrative penalties, including license revocation and retirement of allowances for companies that don’t comply. Fines and criminal penalties also can be imposed. EPA said it has finalized administrative consequences retiring more than 6.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent for 2022 and 2023 for companies that misreported data or imported HFCs without required allowances.
Since January 2022, an interagency task force on illegal HFC trade, led by EPA and the Department of Homeland Security, has prevented illegal HFC shipments equivalent to more than 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide at the border, officials said. That is the equivalent to carbon emissions from more than 200,000 homes for one year.
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Comments
Seems to be an enormous leap of logic to go from X pounds of HFC22 = Y pounds of CO2, but logic has never been a strong point when the environmentalists go on a rampage.
X(Y)²
I’ll believe they’re serious about this when they ban Chris Christie from international flights.
It seems that all the climate whackos really want is for everyone to have to back to when life sucked. When you had no good way to store food, heat and cool your home and were limited in mobility to what your own feet could offer you.
LOL. The “O-Zone Hole”. The first huge, global fraud perpetrated by the left … that they got away with and set them up to really destroy everything.
Whatever happened to the infamous “O-Zone Hole” that was going to fry everyone in Australia right before it turned the globe into a giant cinder? Interesting how it just dropped out of the news …
The fact is that the “O-Zone Hole” was something that was only seen with some of the first satellite measurements, that no one had any information on and that some scientists just assumed was an anomaly that was caused by Man. They had never thought about anything like it before and had no clue, but the first time they measured the O-Zone they saw it and assumed it was not natural. But … it’s still there. It fluctuates but it never goes away … sort of like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. So, they made us get rid of all of our aerosol cans and nothing changed with the “O-Zone Hole” so they just stopped talking about it and moved onto Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming to be the next thing that will turn the Earth into a spherical cinder unless we stop all modern human activity immediately!!!
Sadly, I see that our retarded Senate ratified the Kigali amendment in 2022, with lots of moronic GOPers jumping on board. Here they are:
Blunt (R-MO) Boozman (R-AR) Burr (R-NC) Capito (R-WV) Cassidy (R-LA)
Collins (R-ME) Ernst (R-IA) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA)
Hyde-Smith (R-MS) Kennedy (R-LA) McConnell (R-KY) Moran (R-KS) Murkowski (R-AK) Portman (R-OH) Romney (R-UT) Rubio (R-FL) Sasse (R-NE) Tillis (R-NC) Wicker (R-MS) Young (R-IN)
Mostly the usual suspects … but a couple of disappointing surprises in there.
unless we stop all modern human activity
Well, not ALL modern human activity. Just yours. And Mine. And Jacobson’s. And Grizzly’s. And Leslie’s.
Now you’ve got me recalling Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen: Lost in the Ozone. Most notable track: Hot Rod Lincoln.
Ah! Good times!
Tonight I listened to the first 90 minutes of a (somewhat longer) live Zoom talk by Prof. Richard Lindzen, MIT’s preeminent “climate denier,” sponsored in an MIT lecture room by MIT Students for Open Inquiry. His introductory section outlined how there was no “climate science” discipline before the Long March through The Institutions (his very words), transformed many existing departments “of meteorology” into “climate science” rackets, focused on “global cooling” and “skin cancer” scares that never did pan out and are largely forgotten. The talk just got better from there. If anybody is interested, I’ll post the video link when it’s available.
I should add — the questions from the audience (most of them present live) were delightful — scholarly, thoughtful, and incisive. No “gotcha” questions from the scientifically illiterate, and especially no mindless screaming and chanting from brain-dead Arabian LARPers.
“The first huge, global fraud…”
My only quibble, not the first, not even close.
Illegally transporting hydrocarbons from Mexico? He clearly indulged too carelessly on the refried beans.
I’ll bring up the same old tired point I have ever since HFCs were first demonized:
If they break down ozone, and are present in hair sprays and all sorts of other aerosols, which would be in great use in a city like LA, then why did LA have a smog problem (ozone is a prime component of smog) during all those years that HFCs were in heavy use?
Maybe those were the CFCs. It gets hard to tell the acronyms apart after a while. (Also, aren’t HFCs the stuff they put in candy and sodas?)
I am likely wrong on this, but, it seems to me that each time the patent on a particular refrigerant is about to expire, it is found to be a hazard, and the new one, with patents and very high licensing fees to other manufacturer’s is – suddenly – The Answer to the Problem.
I agree.
Other things like LNG and LP also make excellent refrigerants. At the time I was building a super insulated passive solar house and pole building 35 years ago, I considered installing a ground loop heat pump. Because of the issue of ongoing Freon availability, I abandoned that.
I have always been deeply suspicious that this change represented represented a huge windfall for the HAVC industry.. Many small appliances like refrigerators and counter top ice makers do use petroleum gas as their working fluid.
The only reason to not use it in central air is explosion risk. But that could be minimized by housing HVAC equipment in an external building which is a safe distance from a home of business, delivering chilled water or hot water.
The early refrigerant of choice was Ammonia, which is great except for being poisonous, caustic, corrosive, and sometimes flammable. Part of the move to Freon was driven by insurance, and “safety.” When a failing AC dumps Ammonia into a movie theater, it’s kind of an issue. (Even shouting “Gas!” in a crowded movie theater is frowned on.)
Some folks are looking at Ammonia refrigerants again. Mechanical reliability and materials have progressed much. Ammonia has some advantages, if you can keep it from getting out and killing people, or corroding the mechanicals.
(For a while I built controls for these things back in the day. Being trained as a Ch E, I sponged up a lot about the other aspects of refrigeration systems.)
Smells are some of the strongest memories. I shall always associate the smell of ammonia with the fun of being hoist through an open factory window by my father, so I could climb down on the inside, run around to the locked door, and open it for him… whereupon he would physically (by hanging on the side of a huge flywheel, supported by a giant crowbar jammed into a socket on its curve) crank the yards-long locomotive diesel to life to compress the plant’s tank of diesel-oil-and-ammonia-refrigerant, sending it coursing through the water-filled floor tanks to begin making the plant’s daily quota of giant ice blocks.
Lovely images. Made me smile.
I have used a propane blend in my Car AC for many years. Less energy required to get the same heat transfer. It’s a very good refrigerant.
Does it help any when cooking on the engine block?
That guy smuggling HFCs from Mexico should’ve labeled it as FENTYNAL, then the JoeBama administration would’ve ignored it, and the thousands of people that poison kills every year.
Grizzly has it right. I have asthma and the rescue inhaler used to cost $5 and the medicine was propelled by an HFC. So when they decided HFC harms the atmosphere (totally unlike harming people’s lungs which apparently was ok) they switched to the newer powder inhalers with no propellant but since they were new and under a patent they were $80. Not a bad financial incentive to argue for green technology.
Check the stocks purchased by Congress critters to verify.
Same for me, my out of pocket just for respiratory and meds was over $2000 a year out of pocket. The worst one was Advair.
More Gestapo-like activity from the DC central tyranny, disguised as concern for the environment—but, as usual, based on lies. BTW, what enumerated power justifies the EPA?
“navigable waterways” and “interstate commerce”
Just put on my new double knit bell bottoms and now you got me all depressed. I stopped using deodorant to fight the ozone hole and I stay inside watching Kojack so that acid rain won’t fall on me.
Kojack is old. There is a new TV show called “CSI: Hand Sanitizer Unit” It focuses on cleaning up crime scenes.
Speaking of hand sanitizer, my hand sanitizer started rapping. Its lyrics were clean but its beats were pretty sick
Okay, this shows that Babylon Bee and P J O’Rourke don’t have a monopoly on satire. If the DOJ sells movie rights to this, it’ll make MILLIONS!
I recall simpler days when HFC meant Household Finance Company.
Is anyone else getting popup flicker-blinky videos in the comments using the mobile website?
I was guessing methane, what with the southern border.