The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is amending certain requirements for facilities subject to EPA's Oil Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) regulations to streamline options for specifically qualified facilities and exemptions from the SPCC regulations for certain vehicle fuel tanks and other on-board bulk oil storage containers.
The SPCC regulations require covered facilities to prevent, prepare for and respond to oil discharges. EPA also is exempting mobile refuelers from the sized secondary containment requirements for bulk storage containers, and removing requirements for animal fats and vegetable oils that pertain to onshore and offshore oil production facilities, oil drilling, and workover facilities.
EPA also is issuing a proposed rule to extend the compliance dates to July 1, 2009, for owners and operators of facilities to amend and implement an existing SPCC plan or in the case of new facilities, time to prepare and implement a new SPCC plan.
Nothing in the final rule and the proposed rule removes any regulatory requirement for owners or operators of facilities in operation before August 16, 2002, to have developed, implemented and maintained a SPCC plan in accordance with the SPCC regulations then in effect. Such facilities continue to be required to maintain their plans during the interim until the applicable date for amending their existing plans and implementing their amended plans.