United States _ Office of Transportation EPA420-F-05-050
Environmental Protection , .. _ ,. _
Agency and Air Quality December 2005
Regulatory
Final Rule to Extend California
Enforcement Exemptions for
Reformulated Gasoline to California
3 Gasoline
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing a final
rule to exempt refineries, importers, and blenders of gasoline subject
to the State of California's Phase 3 reformulated gasoline (CaRFGS)
regulations from certain enforcement provisions in the federal
reformulated gasoline (RFG) regulations. We are taking this action
because gasoline complying with the CaRFG3 regulations will provide
emissions benefits equivalent to Federal Phase II RFG, and California's
compliance and enforcement program will in practice be significantly
rigorous to assure that the standards are met. The enforcement
exemptions ensure that California refineries, importers, and blenders
do not have to comply with duplicative federal and state regulations
and thereby reduce costs to regulated industry without any negative
environmental impact.
Background
Section 211(k) of the Federal Clean Air Act directs EPA to establish re-
quirements for RFG to be used in specified ozone nonattainment areas,
as well as "anti-dumping" requirements for conventional gasoline used
in the rest of the country. The areas covered by the federal RFG program
in California are San Joaquin Valley, Los Angeles, San Diego, and
Sacramento. Since the federal RFG regulations were promulgated,
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California refineries and importers have
been continuously exempted from certain
enforcement-related requirements such as
record keeping and reporting, and certain
sampling and testing requirements. EPA
granted enforcement exemptions to Cali-
fornia because the California RFG (called
"California Phase 2 gasoline") would have
comparable standards to federal RFG,
and California has sufficiently stringent
enforcement to ensure program benefits
are met. The enforcement exemptions are
limited and there are reasonable provisions
that permit parties subject to the California
RFG regulations to avoid costly adherence
to duplicative federal and state enforce-
ment provisions.
California recently promulgated its new
California Phase 3 (CaRFGS) regulations,
which replaces the current California Phase
2 regulations. We have evaluated those reg-
ulations and have concluded that the crite-
ria for enforcement exemptions mentioned
above apply to the new regulations as well.
For that reason, we issued a proposed rule
to extend the federal enforcement exemp-
tions to these new California regulations.
The proposal was met with enthusiasm by
the Western States Petroleum Association
(WSPA), which represents California refin-
eries. No adverse comments were received.
Since the CaRFGS regulations became
effective on December 31, 2003, affected
regulated parties have been covered by a
grant of enforcement discretion to bridge
the time until this final rule becomes fully
effective.
CaRFG3 regulations are affected by this
rule. This rule is expected to reduce regula-
tory burdens associated with duplicative
provisions in the federal RFG and CaRFG3
regulations and should result in a cost sav-
ings to industry.
Health and Environmental
Benefits
This rule is not expected to have any ad-
verse impact because the CaRFG3 stan-
dards are equivalent to the federal RFG
standards, and California has a rigorous
enforcement program.
For More Information
You can access documents related to fed-
eral RFG and the California enforcement
exemptions on EPA's Office of Transporta-
tion and Air Quality (OTAQ) Web site at:
www.epa.gov/otaq/rfg_regs.htm#enforcement
For more information on this rule, please
contact Anne Pastorkovich at:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
OTAQ (6406J)
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460
(202) 343-9623 - phone
(202) 343-2801 - fax
E-mail:
pastorkovich.anne-marie@epa.gov
Affected Industry
Refineries, importers, and blenders of
California gasoline who are subject to the
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