ILTA Submits Comments to EPA on Fuels Regulatory Streamlining
June 24, 2020
The Honorable Andrew Wheeler
Administrator
Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue,
N.W. Washington, DC 20460
TRANSMITTED VIA EMAIL
Subject: Fuels Regulatory Streamlining (40 CFR Parts 79, 80, 86, 1037, and 1090)
Docket ID No. EPA–HQ– OAR–2018–0227
Dear Administrator Wheeler,
Founded in 1974, the International Liquid Terminals Association represents more than 85 companies operating liquid terminals in all 50 states and in over 40 countries. Our members’ facilities provide critical links between all modes of transportation for liquid commodities, such as crude oil, petroleum products, chemicals, renewable fuels, fertilizer, vegetable oils and other food-grade materials that are central to the U.S. economy. Terminals provide essential logistics services that spur trade within the United States and connect the U.S. economy with overseas markets. ILTA’s membership also includes about 400 companies that supply equipment and services to the terminal industry.
Terminals are part of the supply chain providing needed logistics and storage for the transfer of bulk liquids from one mode of transportation to another, including the loading of tanker trucks to make “last mile” deliveries of fuels to retail facilities.
We very much appreciate this opportunity to provide the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) comments on its Fuels Regulatory Streamlining proposal. We commend EPA for undertaking this much-needed effort to simplify the existing fuels regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Title 40 Part 80. Most of the proposed revisions will reduce fuels compliance costs and/or reduce compliance workloads without any loss in fuels quality or adverse effects to air quality.
PROVISIONS THAT ILTA SUPPORTS
ILTA supports most of the provisions included in the proposal. This includes:
- Simplifying the current summer RFG VOC standard into an RVP per-gallon cap of 7.4 psi.
This change is long overdue. It eliminates a great deal of unneeded laboratory testing and allows for significantly faster RFG batch certification.
- Eliminating the 14 gasoline parameters used in gasoline recertification and reporting, along with the retention of just four gasoline parameters: sulfur, benzene, RVP and oxygenate type/content.
- Allowing all winter gasoline to be used in RFG areas without recertification.
- Allowing mandatory RFG areas to remove the applicability of the RFG program provided the three specified requirements are met.
- Removing the requirement that motor vehicle diesel fuel be free of red dye.
- Consolidating the four in-use retail fuel surveys into a single national in-use retail program. The reduction of sample quantities from 18,000 samples annually to less than 7,000 should result in a significant reduction in the cost of this survey program. However, ILTA has concerns about the legality of requiring all conventional gasoline be covered under this national in-use program.
- Establishing a voluntary, third-party survey program for oversight of gasoline manufacturing facilities and the proposal to require gasoline manufacturers that elect to account for oxygenate added downstream to participate in the proposed national sampling oversight program.
- Continuing of the 0.3 psi downstream enforcement tolerance over the applicable RVP standards.
- Allowing California’s or the Top Tier deposit control program to be used for any new detergent deposit control testing. However, EPA must allow future consensus-based testing methods for deposit-control testing to be used. It is imperative that existing detergent certifications based on the EPA ASTM D5500 continue to remain valid indefinitely.
- Allowing refiners to operate under their existing Part 80 in-line blending waivers through January 1, 2022.
ILTA’s CONCERNS
While the proposal includes many provisions that ILTA supports (listed above), there are also areas of concern. We discuss these below.
- Timing
EPA has proposed an effective date of January 1, 2021 effective date for Part 1090 regulations. We propose an effective date of no sooner than June 1, 2021, to align with the changeover to VOC-season gasoline, and at least 90 days after EPA finalizes the Part 1090 Fuels Streamlining Regulation, allowing sufficient time to make all necessary changes to Product Transfer Documents (PTDs) and prepare and submit necessary blend waivers. Finally, ILTA agrees with EPA’s proposal for a March 31, 2022 deadline for the first compliance reports for the 2021 compliance and a June 1, 2022 deadline for the first attest engagement reports for the 2021 compliance period.
- Moving Conventional Gasoline (CG) Under the RFG Survey Program
While we understand the logic for proposing that CG be included under the RFG Survey fuel oversight requirements, we do not believe that EPA has the authority to put this requirement into effect. In addition, there are many U.S. terminals that only handle CG and therefore have no current requirement to deal with RFG rules and surveys and the new fuel sampling requirements. The imposition of this requirement would significantly increase the compliance costs for these CG only terminals without providing any environmental benefits.
- E0 provisions
While there are several gasoline engine applications that require the use of E0, and E0 usage is growing briskly, ethanol-free gasoline is still a miniscule portion of the national gasoline pool. EPA should allow the terminal production of E0 but remove any requirement to force the blender to track and account for the de minimis amount of oxygenate not used in the E0 product pool.
- Butane Purity
The minimum purity level (92%) proposed by EPA for certified butane is high and would restrict sources of butane to only a handful of certified butane producers. We propose EPA consider lowering the butane purity level to 85% (minimum) for certified butane.
- Confidentiality
EPA’s revised Confidential Business Information (CBI) provision sets a precedent of the agency releasing potentially confidential information at its sole discretion. ILTA suggests that EPA issue notices to the businesses in question and include an option to appeal the disclosure before it is made public.
Again, ILTA appreciates this opportunity to provide EPA with comments on its Fuels Regulatory Streamlining effort, and we hope you closely evaluate our concerns. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Peter Lidiak
Vice President Regulatory Affairs
cc: Nick Parsons, parsons.nick@epa.gov
Docket ID No. EPA–HQ– OAR–2018–0227
3394