rce9rys clarifies EPA fuel regulations & registration requirements

This is from a friend of mine regarding EPA regs.:

A variety of provisions are included in the rule to help avoid duplication of effort and reduce costs. For example, while the requirements are strict, the rule permits adequate existing test data to be submitted in lieu of conducting new duplicative tests.

Under the grouping system, each fuel or additive is first sorted into one of six broad "fuel families" (see Figure 2). Each fuel family consists of F/FA products which share basic characteristics in regard to their chemical/physical properties and engine/vehicle
applicability. The fuel families are then subdivided into the following three F/FA categories: "baseline," "non-baseline," and "atypical." In the case of the gasoline and diesel fuel families, the baseline categories consist of fuels and associated fuel additives which contain no chemical elements other than carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur and conform to certain quantitative limits on oxygen content.

All baseline gasoline F/FAs comprise a single F/FA group, as do all baseline diesel F/FAs.

The final rule defines a small business for this program as any motor vehicle fuel or fuel additive manufacturer with total annual sales of less than $50 million.

In regard to registration of products in the baseline and non-baseline categories, the final rule permits companies with annual sales less than $50 million to submit only the basic registration data. Such companies are not required to meet the Tier 1 and Tier 2 requirements in order to register their baseline and non-baseline F/FAs. Since nearly every registered F/FA manufacturer produces at least one baseline or non-baseline product, the larger companies will still be submitting the data for products in these groups. Thus, this provision should not cause EPA to be without the data needed to evaluate these kinds of products.

That should pretty well take care of any concerns you have about EPA registration.