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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	17-P-0249
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June 8, 2017
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At a Glance
Why We Did This Review
The Office of Inspector
General (OIG) conducted this
evaluation to determine the
effectiveness of the EPA's
process and controls for
ensuring that gasoline refiners
and importers meet EPA
standards for benzene content
in gasoline. Prolonged
exposures to benzene are
associated with blood
disorders and leukemia.
The EPA's 2007 Mobile
Source Air Toxics Rule set
two standards to limit benzene
in gasoline: an annual average
standard and a maximum
average concentration
standard. Refiners and
importers report to the EPA
the volume and benzene
content for each batch of
gasoline produced or imported,
and the total annual volume
and average benzene
concentration of all gasoline
produced or imported for the
year. Facilities can buy credits
from other facilities to meet the
annual average standard.
This report addresses the
following EPA goals or
cross-agency strategies:
•	Addressing climate change
and improving air quality.
•	Protecting human health
and the environment by
enforcing laws and
assuring compliance.
Send all inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391
or visit www.epa.gov/oia.
Listing of OIG reports.
Improved Data and EPA Oversight Are Needed
to Assure Compliance With the Standards for
Benzene Content in Gasoline
What We Found
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
could improve the effectiveness of its oversight
processes and controls for the benzene fuels
program to provide better assurance that refineries
and importers report accurate and complete data,
and comply with the gasoline benzene standards.
Program improvements
can reduce the risk that
benzene in gasoline
exceeds legal limits.
We reviewed all batch and annual benzene reports for the period 2011
through 2014. Reported annual volumes and/or annual average benzene
concentrations did not match supporting batch reports for over 25 percent of
the regulated facilities. The benzene regulations require facilities to engage an
auditor to attest to the accuracy of credit information in their annual benzene
reports. However, the effectiveness of these reviews was limited because the
auditors were not required to verify supporting data used to calculate credits.
EPA enforcement staff said they have limited resources to oversee all fuels
programs. Thus, decisions to review and enforce benzene program compliance
take into account the significance of a facility's potential or actual violations for
all fuels programs. We identified potential noncompliance with the benzene
standards at 40 facilities.
For 16 of these facilities, EPA staff had either never reviewed these facilities for
compliance using its compliance assessment tool, conducted an on-site
compliance audit as of the time of our review, or had reviewed the facilities
prior to the year in which we identified the potential noncompliance. According
to data reported to the EPA at the time of our review, these 16 facilities
produced or imported over 13 billion gallons of gasoline during the period 2011
through 2014, which potentially did not meet applicable benzene standards for
gasoline (about 3 percent of total U.S. volume during that period). Due to the
possibility of reporting or other errors, additional review by EPA staff is needed
to determine whether these facilities exceeded the benzene standards.
Recommendations and Planned Agency Corrective Actions
We made 10 recommendations for the EPA to improve data quality and
completeness, and review instances of potential noncompliance. The EPA
agreed with all recommendations or provided acceptable corrective actions for
the recommendations. Two recommendations are complete and closed.
Three recommendations are resolved because the EPA provided acceptable
corrective actions and completion dates. Five recommendations are
unresolved pending the EPA providing completion dates for the corrective
actions.

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