National Air Transportation Association (NATA)

New Secondary Containment Rules Proposal Better Than it Was, but Still Has a Way to Go

Just before Christmas 2005, at a hearing before the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the National Air Transportation Association (NATA) President James K. Coyne testified on behalf of airports and aviation businesses regarding the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules addressing fuel spill prevention. Global Aviation magazine was there to ask Mr Coyne what this meant for the aviation industry in the USA.

Over the past few years, a number of aviation-fuel providers have been notified by the US Environmental Protection Agency that their fuel trucks are subject to regulation requiring so-called “secondary containment”while the trucks are parked. The EPA contends that these trucks are mobile or portable storage facilities subject to existing regulations that have been covered since the rules’ inception in the early 1970s. Earlier in December 2005, the EPA finally issued two Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM's) on revisions to the SPCC rule, which governs secondary containment.The new deadline for implementation of these regulations has been extended to October 31, 2007.

The NPRM's put forth by the EPA present a much better solution than those proposed earlier by the agency, although the rules contain some contradictions and still leave many questions unanswered. Most notably, the proposed amendments do away with the requirements of “sized secondary containment” for mobile refuellers, which posed the largest challenges to the industry. Refueling vehicles will no longer be required to build costly containment areas to hold the trucks when they are not in service. Vehicles are still subject to “general containment”provisions, which are far more reasonable.

The EPA’s new proposals still, however, leave some lingering questions regarding the SPCC requirements.The NPRM's do not specifically state whether the extension for compliance to October 2007 applies to aviation industry regulations as the industry asserts .Second, general containment is loosely defined in the documents, which gives more discretion to individual EPA inspectors responsible for auditing airport environmental operations. Additionally, other non-aviation vehicles and equipment subject to SPCC requirements are given exemptions due to their excellent history of handling fuel spills, while the aviation industry, which has a comparable if not better record, isn't’t provided these exemptions. Overall, NATA is supportive of the efforts made by the EPA to mitigate the impact the SPCC rules could have on the aviation industry, and looks forward to working with the agency to further clarify some key issues that currently remain unresolved.

History

Prior to the release of the SPCC NPRM's on December2, 2005 the aviation industry was extremely concerned with the EPA’s lack of communication with officials at the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regarding the matter. While the EPA and DOT operate under a series of agreements regarding jurisdiction over certain parts of the airport, the industry found it alarming that the two agencies were not relying on the expertise each has in drafting rules that would not impede airport operations. While we have received word that the FAA was consulted very late in the rulemaking process, the industry feels that the FAA and EPA should have been working together from the beginning.

Facts about General Aviation and NATA Members

• There are approximately 221,000 general aviation aircraft operating in the US. These aircraft have access to over 5,000 airports and landing facilities.Only 563 of these airports are served by scheduled air carriers.



• In 2000, general aviation flew 31.8 million hours compared to commercial air carriers, which flew14.4 million hours.



• There are 3,000 on-demand air taxi operators in the US. which operate more than 11,000 aircraft. 90 percent of these operators are small businesses as defined by the Small Business Administration. Air charter includes aero medical services, air cargo operations and air tour operators.



• There are more than 3,600 fixed-base operators(FBO's) in the US. FBO's provide fuel and other products and services to pilots of general aviation aircraft. There are more than 4,000 aircraft repair stations in the US operating under Federal Aviation Regulation Part 145.



• There are 3,200 US-based flight-training schools.

Are Fuel Spills a Significant Problem?

Mobile refuellers in use at airports currently adhere to a strict inspection regimen designed to ensure the integrity of the fuel tanks to prevent them from leaking or spilling fuel onto the ground. The design and construction of all mobile refuellers follow DOT guidelines and are tested to certify compliance with environmental emissions standards. Moreover,virtually all-mobile refueling vehicles are equipped with a number of safety devices to prevent fuel spills and leaks, and also to minimise the risk of fire. Airport refuellers are equipped with systems including emergency cut-off switches; interlock systems to prevent movement of the vehicle without the proper stowage of equipment and over-fill prevention valves. Refuelling vehicles also contain protections such as“dead-man” switches, over-pressure cut-off valves and the capability to isolate individual system components.

In addition to the numerous safety precautions and redundancies in use on a mobile refuellers, there is also a strong economic incentive for operators to conserve as much fuel as possible. Fuel is the most profitable and sometimes only commodity for an airport business, and it makes no sense for a fuel provider notto care about protecting fuel from leaks and spills. With the price of jet fuel having increased dramatically in recent years, it makes even more sense for the provider to make sure that every gallon of fuel he or she has purchased makes it into the aircraft rather than having it spilled onto the airport tarmac

While it is clear that airport refuellers take extraordinary steps to minimise the potential for damage caused by fuel spills, the EPA continues to believe that these trucks are highly susceptible to fuel spills and leakage, even when not in use. We contend that the EPA is proposing a solution to a problem that does not exist. Across the entire aviation industry, we do not have one documented case of a fuel truck spontaneously rupturing or spilling fuel while the truck is not in service, which is what many of the SPCC provisions guard against. In the rule and accompanying guidance released this month, the EPA contends again that they have documented cases of aviation fuel trucks spilling. However, the agency has failed to share these cases with the industry at anytime during our discussions on the rule. I think it would make for much better public policy if the EPA were to share their documented cases with the industry so we can review the cases and amend industry standards, if necessary. We have always welcomed the opportunity to work with the EPA to review the causes of such spills and to come together to reach solutions to help prevent similar incidents in the future, providing such cases actually exist.

Kerojet situation post hurricanes.

The market situation for kerosene jet fuel was severely affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.Due to the required shutdown of refineries in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, jet fuel production dropped from 1.6million barrels a day prior to Katrina to 1.1 million barrels per day after Rita. Imports and flows of jet fuel were restricted due to port shutdowns and pipeline closures. At the same time, demand for jet fuel declined due to closures of airports in the immediate area of the storms and the ripple effects throughout thesystem.The net impact was a tighter market and asa result, prices shot up by 60 cents per gallon in New York Harbour as a result of Katrina, declined for a brief period by 50 cents per gallon and then spiked again by50 cents as a result of Rita impacts.With the return of refinery production, increased imports and the decline in demand, the market for jet fuel has changed and prices for jet fuel declined to pre-Katrina levels.The outlook for the jet fuel market will likely be function of the future supply and demand conditions for crude oil, the level of air travel, which is influenced by weather, the economy and the price of gasoline.Also, as kerosene is used as a thinner for diesel fuel in northern climates, additional demand due to cold weather could affect the jet fuel market.

John C. Felmy, Ph.D, Chief Economist and Director, American Petroleum Institute

The EPA’s New Revisions to the SPCC Rule

The new EPA proposal effectively exempts airport mobile refuellers from both of the above provisions. These provisions were the most contentious in our discussions with the EPA, as they would have cost tens of thousands of dollars for airport businesses and required fuel providers to construct specialised areas of the airports to park the fuel trucks when they were not in service. Such areas would have reduced the already constrained space on the airport operating area (AOA) and many airports have no space at all in which to construct these facilities. Furthermore, the increased traffic of having fuel trucks driving back and forth to these areas increased the likelihood of safety incidents during daily airport operations. Also, having trucks loaded with fuel parked in relative proximity to each other would provide an inviting target for terrorists seeking to cripple the aviation system in the United States.

While the requirements of “general secondary containment” do provide a variety of ways to comply,the broadness of the provision also leaves many unanswered questions. We support the flexibility in having so many different compliance mechanisms, but are eager to hear more from the EPA on how the agency will enforce these regulations. The guidance for EPA regional inspectors issued by the agency to accompany the NPRM's is vague and leaves many of the terms undefined. We have concerns that without more structured guidance for EPA inspectors, the inspectors will have more autonomy to enforce the regulations at their will. We have already dealt with problems where EPA regulations are enforced differently depending upon in which region an airport is located and, without more defined guidance to EPA inspectors, we expect this practice to continue.