Nominee Bondi lobbied for China-backed company that has active case against US government
Published in News & Features
WASHINGTON — If confirmed to be U.S. attorney general, Pam Bondi would oversee the U.S. Department of Justice.
That could pit one of her attorneys against a company that Bondi lobbied on behalf of last year.
As a lobbyist for Ballard Partners, Bondi, the former Florida attorney general, represented the Tampa-based refrigerant company iGas USA, according to a newly filed financial disclosure.
That company filed a petition against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in September 2023 asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review an EPA rule. The EPA has been represented by an attorney from the DOJ during the proceeding, which is still ongoing.
iGas sells imported refrigerants from China that are used to cool refrigerators and air conditioners. The synthetic greenhouse gases, known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs are considered major drivers of climate change and are being phased out thanks to a 2020 bill signed by Trump in his first term in office.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been tasked with determining how much of the refrigerant companies can sell based on their prior market share.
iGas has disputed the EPA’s methodology for determining the allowances, which the company’s Chief Executive Officer Ben Meng has estimated could be worth billions of dollars in profits over the course of the phasedown, according to a 2018 e-mail disclosed in a lawsuit filed by one of Meng’s former suppliers.
As the Miami Herald previously reported, court records show that iGas is owned in part by a Chinese company that the U.S. Commerce Department determined in 2017 was a state owned enterprise.
The company and its affiliated companies and employees have given more than $1 million in political contributions over the past five years, largely to Republicans in Florida. That includes Ashley Moody, who followed Bondi as Florida attorney general and has been picked by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to fill the U.S Senate seat being vacated by Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick to be U.S. secretary of state.
Bondi did not respond to requests for comment.
She did not list her work as a lobbyist for Ballard as a potential conflict of interest on the questionnaire she submitted ahead of her Wednesday confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
The ranking Democrat on the committee, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, asked Bondi why she didn’t include her lobbying work as a potential conflict and whether she would recuse herself from any cases involving her former clients.
“If there are any conflicts with anyone I represented in private practice I would consult with the career ethics officials within the department and make the appropriate decision,” she said.
Bondi added that other attorney generals have “represented and advocated for businesses” before taking office.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
In a phone call, Meng, the iGas CEO, said that he didn’t really know anything about the company’s lobbying efforts or political giving.
“I’m just a businessman, I don’t get involved in politics,” he said.
But he said that the company’s political contributions and lobbying haven’t helped the company with the EPA.
“They never had any rules that favored our company,” he said.
The case iGas brought against the EPA was heard before a panel of three judges in October and is awaiting a final decision.
________
©2025 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Comments