United States Office of EPA-550-F-07-005
Environmental Protection Emergency Management October 2007
Agency (5104A) www.epa.gov/emergencies
Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC)
Proposed Rule Amendments
Information about October 2007 proposed amendments to the SPCC Rule
EPA has proposed amendments to the SPCC rule that will increase clarity and tailor certain
requirements for easier and increased compliance. The regulated community now has the opportunity
to comment on these proposed changes during a 60-day comment period, following publication of the
proposed rule in the Federal Register.
EPA is requesting comments on the following proposed changes to the SPCC
regulations:
All SPCC-regulated facilities would be potentially affected by the proposed amendments to
provide:
• clarity on the general secondary containment requirements;
• flexibility in the security requirements;
• flexibility in the use of industry standards to comply with integrity testing requirements;
• additional flexibility in meeting the facility diagram requirements; and
• clarification on the flexibility provided by the definition of "facility."
In addition to the amendments listed above, EPA is proposing to:
• Exempt the following from SPCC regulations:
• hot-mix asphalt and hot-mix asphalt containers;
• pesticide application equipment and related mix containers used at farms;
• heating oil containers at single-family residences; and
• completely buried oil storage tanks at nuclear power generation facilities that meet the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission design criteria and quality assurance criteria at 10 CFR
part 50, Appendices A and B.
• Differentiate integrity testing requirements for containers that store Animal Fats or
Vegetable Oils (AFVO) and meet certain criteria and FDA regulatory requirements.
• Define "loading/unloading rack" in order to clarify the equipment subject to the
provisions for facility tank car and tank truck loading/unloading racks and exclude farms
and oil production facilities from the loading/unloading requirements; and
• Streamline:
• requirements and allow the use of an SPCC Plan template for a subset of qualified
facilities known as "Tier 1" qualified facilities (i.e., with no individual oil storage container
with a capacity greater than 5,000 U.S. gallons up to an aggregate of 10,000 gallons);
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and
• several requirements for oil production facilities, including:
- modify the definition of "production facility", consistent with the proposed
amendments to the definition of "facility";
- extend the timeframe by which a new oil production facility must prepare and
implement an SPCC Plan;
- exempt flow-through process vessels at oil production facilities from the sized
secondary containment requirements, while maintaining general secondary
containment requirements and requiring additional oil spill prevention measures;
- exempt flowlines and intra-facility gathering lines at oil production facilities from
all secondary containment requirements, while establishing more specific oil spill
prevention measures;
- clarify the definition of "permanently closed" as it applies to an oil production
facility.
(Note: EPA is also taking comment on approaches that could be used to establish alternative
criteria for an oil production facility to be eligible to self-certify an SPCC Plan as a qualified
facility, and approaches to address produced water containers at oil production facilities.)
• Clarify that nurse tanks used at farms are included in the December 2006 amendments
related to mobile refuelers and therefore exempt from the specifically sized secondary
containment requirements for bulk storage containers.
All SPCC regulated facilities are still required to comply with the existing SPCC regulations while EPA
considers these proposed amendments. For information about facilities required to comply with the
SPCC and any compliance date extensions, please visit www.epa.gov/emergencies.
Please submit your comments on
the proposed rule at
www.regulations.gov. If you have
specific questions about the
proposed amendments, please
contact our helpline at 1-800-424-
9346.
For More Information
Read the proposed SPCC rule amendment
http://www.epa.gov/emergencies
Comment on the proposed SPCC rule amendment and review
docket documents
http://www.regulations.gov, and follow the online instructions to
comment on Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OPA-2007-0584
Review the Oil Pollution Prevention regulation (40 CFR part 112)
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/
Visit the EPA Office of Emergency Management Web site
http://www.epa.gov/emergencies
Call the Super-fund, TRI, EPCRA, RMP, and Oil Information Center
(800) 424-9346 or (703) 412-9810
TDD (800) 553-7672 or (703) 412-3323
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/resources/infocenter
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