Company boss pleads guilty to illegal HFC import
4th April 2026
USA: The CEO of a Georgia-based HVAC company has pleaded guilty to illegally importing HFC refrigerants in contravention of the US AIM Act and the Clean Air Act.
William Randolph Hires, the CEO of now defunct company Extreme Residential, illegally imported 500 cylinders of HFCs into the United States from Peru April 2022.
Over the next several months, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials explained to Hires’s employees that, under the AIM Act and its implementing regulations, Hires’s company could not lawfully import the HFCs into the United States because it failed to obtain the required allowances from EPA. In a July 2022 email to one of Hires’ s employees, an EPA official stated: “It is not possible to import bulk HFCs without consumption allowances.”
Company employees are said to have relayed this information from the EPA to Hires several times. On one occasion, an employee forwarded Hires an email from an EPA official that stated, “[t]he HFC you listed (R-410A) is a regulated substance. So, if you do not have allowances, you cannot import those bulk HFC refrigerants.” Hires nevertheless instructed his employees to illegally import the HFCs into the United States. Hires stated to his employees: “ [y]eah you have to be careful what agencies you’ re reaching out to because the EPA . . . can create a hassle and they can hold our stuff up in customs there[.]” In a subsequent email, Hires instructed his employees to “get [the HFCs] on the ship and get it out to sea . . . don’ t care what it takes[.]” Hires later told his employees via email: “Do not call the EPA please do not.”
Sentencing is scheduled for June 17, 2026.
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