Barrera Imported 15,232 KG of a Climate-Regulated Gas With Zero Legal Allowances. The Federal Penalty Was Only $500.

The Paper Trail: In Their Own Filing

Four lines from the government’s own consent order do the heaviest lifting in this case. Here they are, unedited.

“HFCs are potent greenhouse gases that accelerate climate change.” — Consent Agreement and Final Order, ¶2

• This is the government’s own framing for the exact chemical class involved in this shipment, stated before a single fact of the case is laid out.
• It ties HFC-134a directly to the international treaty commitments discussed later in this filing, not to some unrelated category of pollution.

“Respondent did not possess any allowances at that time.” — Consent Agreement and Final Order, ¶26

• Confirms the company held zero of the 21,781.8 allowances the law required for the 15,232 kg shipment.
• This was not a partial shortfall. It was a complete absence of legal authorization for the import.

“[Respondent] neither admits nor denies the allegations contained in Section I.D of this CAFO” — Consent Agreement and Final Order, ¶30(c)

• Confirms the company faced no adjudicated finding of wrongdoing despite paying a federal penalty.
• The public record closes with a payment, not a determination that the violation occurred.

“EPA conducted an analysis of Respondent’s financial information and determined Respondent has a limited ability to pay.” — Consent Agreement and Final Order, ¶32(a)

• Confirms the $500 figure was not calculated from the scale of the violation.
• Shows the company’s own finances, not the volume of unauthorized greenhouse gas, set the final number.

The Border Checkpoint That Didn’t Check

This case is a customs case from the start: a shipment of climate-regulated gas that crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without the paperwork or credits the law requires.

• The documented supply chain tier here is the import point itself: 15,232 kg of HFC-134a moved from Mexico into the United States through the Port of Nogales, Arizona, under Customs Entry Number BDJ-1044079-9.
• Federal rule requires an importer to file an advance notification report at least five days before a shipment like this crosses the border, under 40 C.F.R. § 84.31(c)(7). That report was never filed.
• The same regulation requires the importer to already possess and expend sufficient allowances at the border crossing itself, under 40 C.F.R. § 84.5(b)(1)(i). The checkpoint designed to catch a shipment like this let 15,232 kg through anyway.

What 15,232 Kilograms of Regulated Coolant Actually Means for the Climate

The filing does not deal in abstractions. It ties one company’s paperwork failure directly to the chemical class driving an international climate treaty.

Environmental Degradation

• The CAFO itself states that HFCs accelerate climate change, tying this specific 15,232 kg shipment to that same chemical class.
• The United States committed under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol to cut HFC production and consumption 85% in a stepwise series of reductions by 2036; this shipment moved in the opposite direction.
• HFC-134a carries an exchange value of 1,430, meaning the 15,232 kg shipment translated into a required allowance obligation of 21,781.8, the government’s own accounting of how much this volume of gas is worth in climate terms. Respondent held none of it.
• Under 40 C.F.R. § 84.5(b)(7), every kilogram of bulk regulated substance imported without authorization counts as a separate violation, meaning the regulation itself treats this shipment as 15,232 distinct instances of noncompliance, not one.

A $500 Price Tag on a Climate Violation

The penalty and the no-admission clause closed the book on a shipment that never carried a single one of its required climate allowances.

• The penalty was not calculated from the scale of the violation. EPA’s own filing says the $500 figure came from an analysis of the company’s finances showing “limited ability to pay,” not from the 15,232 kg shipment or the 21,781.8 allowances it lacked.
• Respondent “neither admits nor denies” the underlying allegations, so the public record closes with a payment but no adjudicated finding that the violation happened.
• None of the missing 21,781.8 allowances were purchased, retired, or otherwise accounted for as a condition of settlement. The company paid a flat dollar amount instead of making up the climate deficit the shipment created.
• Calculated from source figures: $500 divided by the 15,232 kg shipment works out to roughly $0.03 per kilogram, the price the federal government put on each kilogram of unauthorized greenhouse gas that crossed the border that day.

The Math the Government Did

This Is the System Working as Intended

Nothing about how this case was built or closed required anyone to change how bulk HFC gets into the country.

• Congress capped how much EPA can assess through this streamlined administrative path under Section 113(d) of the Clean Air Act. Even though this violation was first alleged to have occurred more than 12 months before EPA filed the case, EPA and the Department of Justice jointly determined it still qualified for that track rather than a referral to federal court.
• The shipment already crossed the border holding zero allowances before any enforcement began. The record shows the violation being discovered and penalized after the fact, not stopped at the checkpoint the rule itself designates.
• The no-admission clause means the case resolves without a legal finding that anything wrong occurred, letting a violation function as a closed transaction rather than a precedent.
• The ability-to-pay reduction ties the size of the penalty to what a company reports about its own finances, not to the volume of unauthorized greenhouse gas it released.

What a Legitimate Fix Looks Like

This case shows what happens when a border checkpoint has no hard stop and a penalty formula has an exit ramp built into it.

Regulatory Track

• Require EPA and Customs and Border Protection to verify allowance possession against the customs entry filing before a bulk shipment of a regulated substance like HFC-134a is released, not after a violation is discovered.
• Remove the ability-to-pay reduction as an automatic offset in cases where an importer held zero required allowances, so the penalty reflects the volume of unauthorized product, not just a company’s stated finances.
• Publish the exchange-value-equivalent shortfall, not just the dollar penalty, in every AIM Act consent order, so the climate scale of a violation stays visible after the case is closed.

Legislative Track

• Restructure the statutory penalty cap under Section 113(d) of the Clean Air Act so it scales with the volume of unauthorized regulated substance involved, instead of functioning as a flat ceiling regardless of shipment size.
• Standardize the timeline for referring violations discovered more than 12 months after the fact, closing the case-by-case joint determination process documented in this filing.
• Require unaccounted-for allowances, like the 21,781.8 in this case, to be retired or offset as a condition of settlement, not simply paid for in cash.

Corporate Governance Track

• General industry standard, not a finding in this case: importers of federally regulated substances should maintain a documented pre-shipment compliance check confirming allowance holdings before goods are scheduled to cross the border.
• General industry standard: designate a compliance officer responsible for filing the advance notification report required under 40 C.F.R. § 84.31(c)(7), so that requirement does not depend on informal recordkeeping.

What Now?

The agencies and the paper trail behind a $500 penalty are public record. Here’s where to look.

• EPA Region 9 Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division: the office that calculated the 21,781.8 allowance shortfall and negotiated the $500 penalty.
• U.S. Department of Justice: jointly determined with EPA that this case, filed more than a year after the shipment, still belonged on the administrative track instead of in federal court.
• Search EPA’s public enforcement docket for Docket No. CAA-09-2026-0040 and similar AIM Act cases to see how often the ability-to-pay reduction gets applied, and to whom.
• Ask elected officials overseeing EPA’s budget why a chemical the U.S. agreed to cut 85% by 2036 under the Kigali Amendment can cross the border without a hard stop when zero allowances are on file.