Terminals are not required to test terminal tanks after every receipt of product. However, to establish a defense to presumptive liability to a violation, a terminal must establish each defense element. One such defense element is that the terminal had a quality assurance program, including a periodic sampling and testing program. Since terminals receive very large volumes of product in each receipt, an appropriate quality assurance program might require sampling and testing after each receipt of 15 ppm product.

Note that terminals would have to test every batch in order to establish a defense if it is adding greater than 15 ppm sulfur content additives (or conduct the VAR approach under § 80.614, if the additive is a static dissipater additive).

Question and Answer was originally posted at Questions and Answers on the Clean Diesel Fuel Rules (PDF)(135 pp, 888 K, EPA420-B-06-010, July 2006, About PDF)