The Biden administration boasted in regards to the unprecedented prosecution of a California man for “smuggling greenhouse gases” throughout the border from Mexico and promoting them on-line, in response to a stunning Environmental Safety Company (EPA) report launched Thursday.
Michael Hart, 58, was arrested in March and pleaded responsible in September to costs associated to transporting refrigerants into the US to hawk on Fb Market, OfferUp and different on-line distributors between June and December 2022.
Biden’s EPA touted the crackdown on Hart, the first-ever particular person charged for local weather change-related bootlegging of refrigerants — specifically, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HFCs) — with out the company’s approval, in its report.
When charging the San Diego resident earlier this yr, US Legal professional Tara McGrath vowed “it is not going to be the final” case of its form.
“We’re utilizing each means potential to guard our planet from the hurt attributable to poisonous pollution, together with bringing felony costs,” the prosecutor from the Southern District of California stated.
Hart hid the refrigerants, or hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HFCs), underneath a tarp and a few instruments in his pickup truck when crossing the border, in response to federal prosecutors.
The importation of HFCs, an artificial refrigerant sometimes utilized in older air con programs, is outlawed underneath the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act of 2020 — handed as a part of a authorities spending invoice in December of that yr.
In complete, the EPA report revealed 121 felony defendants have been charged with local weather crimes in 2024 — the very best quantity since Biden, 82, took workplace — and that it concluded greater than 1,850 civil circumstances.
The environmental authority additionally reported slapping $1.7 billion in penalties on local weather offenders within the newest fiscal yr, the very best degree reached underneath Biden.
The company stated its “enhanced efforts” at implementing environmental legal guidelines held “polluters accountable” and offered “substantial environmental and public well being advantages.”
“In Fiscal 12 months 2024, EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance program produced its strongest outcomes since 2017, specializing in efforts to fight local weather change and tackling a few of the nation’s most vital environmental threats to our shared air, water and land,” David Uhlmann, the assistant administrator for EPA’s Workplace of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, stated in a press release.
“The progress made underneath the Biden-Harris Administration has despatched a transparent sign that polluters will likely be held accountable and that defending communities from hurt is a high precedence,” he added.
Trump, who truly signed into legislation the greenhouse gasoline invoice that resulted in Hart’s arrest, albeit as a part of a authorities funding bundle, has tapped former New York GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin to function administrator of the EPA in his incoming administration.
In an interview with the Related Press, Uhlmann indicated that he expects the EPA underneath Trump to proceed to carry polluters accountable.
“Upholding the rule of legislation and ensuring that polluters are held accountable and communities are protected against dangerous air pollution is just not a partisan matter,” the EPA official stated. “We do enforcement at EPA based mostly on the legislation, based mostly on the info, with out regard to politics.”
“So, you realize, communities ought to count on that EPA will proceed to guard them from dangerous air pollution,” he added.
Hart faces as much as 5 years in jail and a $250,000 effective. His sentencing date is scheduled for Dec. 9.
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