By the OGJ Online Staff
WASHINGTON, DC, Feb. 12 -- The US Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday agreed with refiners looking for ways to streamline reformulated gasoline rules when suppliers switch from winter to summer fuel. EPA's new final rule eliminates complicated blend stock accounting rules and keeps seasonal deadlines for RFG supplies intact.
The agency rejected an earlier suggestion made last fall to require terminal operators switch from winter to summer RFG by Apr 15. Instead, terminals still must have RFG by May 1, with RFG at the retail pump by June 1.
Refiners opposed an earlier deadline because it would give suppliers less flexibility, according to Bob Slaughter, general counsel of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.
"We appreciate EPA's decision not to proceed with the proposed transition date change in light of concerns expressed by NPRA and others," he said.
RFG is mandated in several US urban areas as a way to reduce pollutants that create smog. EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman last fall called on industry and other interested stakeholders to discuss ways to simplify the agency's clean fuel program from the refinery to the gasoline pump (OGJ Online, Nov. 30, 2001).
The White House's energy blueprint released in May calls for simpler clean fuel rules; various congressional proposals also seek a new system that would reduce the dozens of so-called "boutique" fuels refiners must make to satisfy local environmental rules.
