On December 5, 2008, EPA published in the Federal Register a rule to amend the SPCC regulations, which contain requirements for oil spill prevention, preparedness, and response to prevent oil discharges to navigable waters and adjoining shorelines. But consistent with an Office of Management and Budget memorandum regarding regulatory review dated January 21, the EPA extended by 60 days the effective date of the rule, which effects oil production facilities, farms, utilities, food manufacturers, gas stations, schools, military installations, religious organizations and others.

Through the December regulation, EPA sought to encourage greater compliance with the SPCC (40 CFR part 112) regulations by clarifying and tailoring requirements to particular industry sectors, and streamlining certain requirements for facility owners or operators subject to the rule.

The SPCC rule includes procedures, methods, equipment and other requirements to prevent the discharge of oil from onshore and offshore facilities into or upon the navigable waters of the United States or adjoining shorelines. This rule applies to any owner operator of a non-transportation-related facility engaged in drilling, producing, gathering, storing, processing, refining, transferring, distributing, using, or consuming oil and oil products, which due to its location, could reasonably be expected to discharge oil inquantities that may be “harmful,” or generally interpreted as “leave a sheen.”

The EPA will address compliance dates in a separate notice. Specifically, the rule:

Modifies the definition of facility to clarify that contiguous or non-contiguous buildings, properties, parcels, leases, structures, installations, pipes or pipelines may be considered separate facilities;

Revises the facility diagram requirement to clarify how containers (fixed and mobile) and complex piping/transfer areas are identified;

Defines the term loading/unloading rack to clarify the equipment subject to the provisions for facility tank car and tank truck loading/unloading racks;

Amends the general secondary containment requirements to clarify that the scope of secondary containment need only take into consideration the typical failure mode.

Exempts non-transportation-related tank trunks from sized secondary containment requirements;

Amends the facility security requirements to allow the facility owner/operator to tailor security measures to the facility’s specific characteristics and locations;

Modifies the integrity testing requirements for bulk storage containers to allow greater flexibility in the use of industry standards at all facilities.

However, this extension does not remove any regulatory requirement for owners or operators of facilities in operation before August 16, 2002 to maintain an SPCC plan.

The SPCC rule (40 CFR part 112) was originally promulgated in December 1973 and was amended in August 2002, including revisions to the requirements for SPCC Plans and for Facility Response Plans (FRPs). After publication of the amended rule, several members of the regulated community filed legal challenges to certain aspects of the rule. The EPA says, all of the issues raised in the litigation have been resolved.

Owners and operators of facilities that are, or may be, affected by the Final Rule should review the new requirements in detail. The new, streamlined requirements should given careful consideration by facilities involved in the process of preparing or amending a facility-specific SPCC Plan in order to take advantage of the revised regulatory requirements.