Clearly, the smuggling situation on the southern border is out of control. The cartels control much of the border and they’ve been becoming vastly wealthy smuggling drugs and human beings into the United States from Mexico. But today’s story involves a different type of smuggling and the cartels don’t appear to be in the loop. A Southern California man named Michael Hart was arrested yesterday on charges of smuggling greenhouse gases into the country. I had previously been blissfully unaware that smuggling “greenhouse gases” was even a thing that happened, not to mention there being laws against it. But in this case, Mr. Hart was smuggling air conditioning coolant or something similar over the border and then trying to sell it on the internet. (ABC News)
A Southern California man was arrested Monday on suspicion of smuggling refrigerants into the U.S. from Mexico and federal prosecutors said he’s the first person to be charged with violating regulations intended to curb the use of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
The indictment alleges Michael Hart, of San Diego, smuggled the ozone-depleting chemicals across the border concealed under a tarp and tools in his vehicle. He posted them for sale on the internet, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Hart was arraigned Monday afternoon and pleaded not guilty to 13 charges including conspiracy, sale of prohibited materials and illegal importation, the statement said.
It turns out that a few years ago Congress passed the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act). One portion of the bill made it illegal to import any hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) into the country without a special permit from the EPA. The most common HFCs are chemicals such as puron, which replaced freon as a primary air conditioning coolant several years ago. Mr. Hart is the first person to be arrested for violating that law, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office promised that “he won’t be the last.”
My first question upon reading this was why anyone would go to the trouble and risk of smuggling coolant across the border. I assumed you could just purchase it in the United States if you’re planning on refilling your coolant systems. But it turns out that it’s not that simple anymore. In the name of the Climate Goddess, the types of coolant you are allowed to use have changed and there are restrictions in place in terms of who is allowed to buy them and use them. The regulations concerning the use of coolant have gone through the roof.
There are apparently no such restrictions in Mexico. Like many other things, including some prescription drugs, you can just walk into a store and buy coolant. You don’t even need to go through the cartels to get your hands on some. Mr. Hart’s plan might have worked out just fine if he hadn’t advertised his service on the Internet. It would seem that the EPA has people on the lookout for such dangerous, climate-threatening activity.
It’s not that I’m encouraging people to start smuggling coolant into the country. You shouldn’t be smuggling anything illegally. But don’t we have much bigger fish to fry at the moment? There is enough fentanyl coming in from Mexico every week to kill every person in America. There are children being smuggled for slavery or sex trafficking purposes. (The Biden administration managed to lose 85,000 migrant children somehow.) Yet we are somehow investing our time and resources to track down and bust this guy so somebody else can’t recharge their refrigerator, all in the name of appeasing the Climate Goddess.
It really doesn’t feel like we have our priorities in order here. The day is coming when the EPA will be pushed to ban all sorts of other things in the name of battling climate change. When that happens, the next story you come across will probably be about a guy who is going to jail for smuggling bags of charcoal briquettes from Mexico.