The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reached a settlement with Resonac America to address the company’s illegal import of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) at the Port of Los Angeles on four occasions in 2023 and 2024.
Resonac America, which is a subsidiary of the Tokyo-based Resonac Corporation, will pay a penalty of $416,003 and destroy 1,693 pounds of HFCs to resolve EPA’s allegations of violations.
Assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, David M. Uhlmann said this case is the largest penalty imposed to date for importing super-polluting HFCs as part of EPA’s National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative.
On three separate occasions – in October, November and December 2023 – Resonac America imported a total of 6,208 pounds of illegal HFCs into the United States at the Port of Los Angeles.
These imports violated the prohibition on importing bulk regulated substances into the United States without possessing sufficient consumption or application-specific allowances at the time of import.
Resonac America also failed to give EPA the required notice of planned shipments of HFCs for the 2023 shipments and a February 2024 shipment, as well as failed to timely submit reports to the EPA with information on HFCs that the company imported in the first and second quarters of 2023.