American Performance Technologies (APT) imported 8,232 uncertified scooters in October 2011 into the Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport. Authorized inspectors from the EPA and U.S. Department of Homeland SecurityÂs Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspected the vehicles at the port warehouse and discovered that although they were imported under a certificate of conformity for a small spark-ignition engine family, the boxes for each scooter contained an optional seat, which made them nonroad motorcycles (defined as being a two-wheeled vehicle with a nonroad engine and a seat). Therefore, the scooters were uncertified.
As part of the settlement process with EPA, APT agreed to remove all the seats from the boxes and to cover any advertising on the boxes about the seats, thus remediating the vehicles and making them small-spark ignition engines. APT also agreed to pay a civil penalty of $100,000 to the U.S. Treasury.