# Tauber
> **Judicial** · FY2017 · — · Final Order With Penalty
## Case
- **Activity ID:** `3601193450`
- **Case Number:** EF-2017-0007
- **Type:** Judicial
- **Lead:** EPA
- **Outcome:** Final Order With Penalty
- **Penalty assessed:** —
- **Cost recovery:** —
- **Compliance action $:** —
- **Multimedia (multi-env):** —
## Defendants
- Tauber Oil Company (complaint) (settlement)
## Summary

This case concerns allegations that Tauber Oil Company sold a fuel additive that was not registered with the EPA. 
Tauber Oil Company is a Houston-based, privately-held company that markets petroleum and petrochemical products. Tauber combined various low-cost alcohol streams to create a product it called ?Mixed Alcohol? in a leased shore tank at a NuStar Energy L.P. facility in Texas City, Texas. The largest component of the Mixed Alcohol was a byproduct of isopropyl alcohol manufacturing. Tauber sold approximately 1.9 million gallons of Mixed Alcohol to Gulftech Marketing, LP, which blended the Mixed Alcohol into fuel prior to distribution to service stations for purchase by consumers. 
The Clean Air Act sets up a precautionary program for registration of fuels and fuel additives to ensure that changes to composition of fuels and fuel additives do not undermine the emissions performance of motor vehicles, either through increased emissions from combustion of the fuel or fuel additive or through harm caused to vehicle emissions control devices by the fuel or fuel additive.
As one component of the precautionary program, the Clean Air Act requires fuel additive manufacturers to register a fuel additive prior to selling, offering for sale, or otherwise introducing a fuel additive into commerce. Registration identifies the chemical composition of the additive and ensures adequate information and testing to determine potential public health and environmental effects that might

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*Source: [EPA ECHO](https://echo.epa.gov/) · AI Analytics · CC0 1.0*