Britain's Andy Green sets another speed record, this time for fastest run in a hydrogen-powered car

WENDOVER, Utah (AP) — The only person to break the sound barrier in a car earned another world record Tuesday in a show of force for hydrogen power.

British driver Andy Green reached 406.320 mph (653.908 kph) in a car powered by two hydrogen internal combustion engines with a combined 1,600 horsepower, setting the record for that vehicle category, according to the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the international governing body of motor sports.

The 64-year-old retired Royal Air Force pilot rocketed across the crystalline crust at Utah’s famous Bonneville Salt Flats in a 32-foot (9.75-meter) car engineered by British construction equipment manufacturer JCB. The engines, adapted from those used in the company’s heavy machinery, mix pressurized hydrogen gas with air and ignite it to create bursts of power.

To be clear, Tuesday’s feat didn’t come close to approaching the overall land-speed record, which Green set with jet power in 1997. That year, he climbed into the Thrust SSC, a black needle sandwiched between two cartoonishly large jet engines, and drove it to an outright record of 763.035 mph (1,227.985 kph), breaking the sound barrier and achieving a feat no one has come close to matching. His runs in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert produced sonic booms that shook the nearby town of Gerlach.

In 2006, Green also set the land-speed record for a diesel-powered car — 350.092 mph (563.4 kph) — at the Bonneville Salt Flats. He returned there Tuesday with the goal of beating that mark using hydrogen power, which he has called the “fuel of the future.”

In targeting his diesel speed, Green easily topped the previous hydrogen combustion world record of 185.5 mph (298.5 kph). He had a 10-mile (16-kilometer) straightaway to build speed. A few dozen JCB staff members and reporters watched from a distance through cameras and binoculars.

A remnant of a prehistoric lake bed, the Bonneville Salt Flats are about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Salt Lake City and sit atop a shallow aquifer that cools the tires. The low-friction surface and dry desert air are conducive to speed and have beckoned drivers since the first race there in 1914.

Green was no stranger to speed when he took his first racing job. He had been flying supersonic military jets when he spotted a 1994 British newspaper ad seeking a high-speed driver to break the sound barrier.

Green did not approach supersonic speeds on Tuesday, but JCB engineers hope his feat with hydrogen power will shake up the clean-energy industry.

The company's chairman has argued that hydrogen can better handle the demands of heavy industries than electric power.

Hydrogen is only as clean as its source, and the vast majority is currently produced from fossil fuels. JCB signed a deal to buy green hydrogen, which is created using renewable energy but makes up a tiny fraction of global hydrogen production.

The JCB Hydromax sits on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah, where Andy Green aims to drive it to a land speed record for cars powered by hydrogen internal combustion engines, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

FILE - British driver Andy Green goes for a new unofficial world diesel powered land speed record of over 328 mph over two runs Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2006, on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac,File)

Racing stickers cover a sign for Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats, home to a speedway where several land speed records have been set, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

FILE - British driver Andy Green, right, is congratulated by a crew member after setting a new unofficial world diesel powered land speed record of over 328 mph over two runs on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah on Tuesday, Aug. 2006. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, File)

The JCB Hydromax sits on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah, where Andy Green aims to drive it to a land speed record for cars powered by hydrogen internal combustion engines, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

NEW YORK (AP) — Government lawyers said a Court of International Trade judge overstepped his authority by ordering the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to issue refunds to all companies that paid tariffs that were deemed illegal in February, even those that didn't file a lawsuit in trade court.

The government filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in June and filed its opening brief on Monday.

In it, government lawyers point to a case that went before the Supreme Court in June 2025, over birthright citizenship. Part of the decision in that case limited the use of universal injunctions, which apply a ruling to all people or companies affected, not just specific litigants.

Judge Richard Eaton, who is overseeing the tariff lawsuits in the Court of International Trade, has said the limits on universal injunctions don't apply in this case, but the government disagrees.

“The CIT’s universal injunctions, requiring the government to refund IEEPA duties for all importers (including non-party importers), cannot possibly be squared with CASA,” — the court case that limited universal injunctions, the government wrote it its brief.

The majority of tariff refunds have already been paid out. CBP has already processed and certified $100 billion in refunds. At issue are companies that paid tariffs that went through the customs process and entries were finalized. There's a Congressional rule that the CBP cannot reprocess tariffs for which the administrative refund process is no longer available. Those companies are free to file a lawsuit to get that money back, the government said.

“The Court of International Trade (CIT) has already entered hundreds of such orders in suits brought by importers seeking that relief, and importers who have not yet brought such suits are free to do so within the statute of limitations,” government lawyers wrote in the brief.

Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School’s Center for International Law, said it appears the government has the better legal argument, but businesses, especially smaller businesses, might suffer.

“The government took this money under a law the Supreme Court said never authorized (tariffs). Getting it back should not turn on whether a business could afford to sue,” he said. “Refunding an unlawful tariff should not be a reward for litigating. ... You cannot really ask a small company to sue for money it does not know it is owed, on a deadline it has never heard of.”

FILE - The United States Court of International Trade, center, is seen in front of the Jacob K. Javits Federal building, March 18, 2015, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)