California Firms Settle Alleged Clean Air Act Violations for Illegally Imported Vehicles
Motorscience and Motorscience Enterprise agreed to settle alleged Clean Air Act (CAA) violations stemming from 24,478 illegally imported all-terrain, recreational vehicles, according to an Aug. 29 press release from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The vehicles were imported into the U.S. from China for which Motorscience obtained certificates of conformity without testing “to ensure emissions would meet applicable limits on harmful air pollution," EPA said. According to several complaints filed by the U.S. and the state of California in September 2011, Motorscience had arranged for only a limited number of vehicles and then reused those results to obtain certificates of conformity for the other vehicles. For at least three of the other vehicles, EPA said that emissions exceeded the federal limits for hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides.
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“This illegal importation of over 20,000 vehicles evaded federal emission standard, jeopardizing human health,” said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Giles added that engines operating without the proper controls “can emit excess carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen which can cause respiratory illnesses, aggravate asthma and contribute to the formation of ground level ozone or smog.”
The two firms, along with owner Chi Zheng, agreed to a stipulated judgment entered against them for a $3.55 million civil penalty, along with payment of an additional $60,000 civil penalty within six months, EPA said. The U.S. will receive 80 percent of the collected penalties and the state of California will collect the rest.
Acting Assistant General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division Robert Dreher said the department would continue to enforce CAA standards “to ensure that American consumers get environmentally sound products that do not pollute the atmosphere and violators do not gain an unfair economic advantage by skirting the law.”