Regulation of Fuels and Fuel Additives: Modification of Baselines for Gasoline Produced or Imported for Use in Hawaii, Alaska and U.S. Territories

This final rule allows refiners and importers who produce or import conventional gasoline for use in Alaska, Hawaii, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands the option to change the way in which they calculate emissions from such gasoline for purposes of establishing their conventional gasoline anti-dumping and toxics performance baselines and determining compliance with their baselines. Specifically, this final rule allows refiners and importers of gasoline sold for use in these areas to petition EPA to modify their baselines to replace the anti-dumping statutory baseline with the single seasonal statutory baseline that is most appropriate to the regional climate, and to use the seasonal component of the Complex Model that is most appropriate to the regional climate to calculate individual baselines and annual average emissions. The rule allows refiners and importers to petition EPA to use the summer statutory baseline and the summer Complex Model for all baseline and compliance calculations for conventional gasoline produced or imported for use in Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and allows refiners and importers to petition EPA to use the winter statutory baseline and the winter Complex Model for all baseline and compliance calculations for conventional gasoline produced or imported for use in Alaska. EPA is taking this action to address certain inconsistencies in the fuels regulations which may have significant unintended negative impacts on refiners and importers who produce or import gasoline for these areas.