Regulation of Fuels and Fuel Additives: Renewable Fuel Standard ...

XII. Administrative Requirements
A. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning And Review
Under Executive Order (EO)12866, (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993) this action is
a “significant regulatory action” because of the policy implications of the proposed rule.
Even though EPA has estimated that renewable fuel use through 2012 will be sufficient
to meet the levels required in the standard, the proposed rule reflects the first renewable
fuel mandate at the federal level. Accordingly, EPA submitted this action to the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) for review under EO 12866 and any changes made in
response to OMB recommendations have been documented in the docket for this action.
B. Paperwork Reduction Act
The information collection requirements in this proposed rule have been
submitted for approval to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the
Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq. The Information Collection Request
(ICR) document prepared by EPA has been assigned EPA ICR number 2242.01.
The information is planned to be collected to ensure that the required amount of
renewable fuel is used each year. The credit trading program required by the Energy Act
will be satisfied through a program utilizing Renewable Identification Numbers (RIN),
which serve as a surrogate for renewable fuel consumption. Our proposed RIN-based
program would fulfill all the functions of a credit trading program, and thus would meet
the Energy Act’s requirements. For each calendar year, each obligated party would be
required to submit a report to the Agency documenting the RINs it acquired, and showing
that the sum of all RINs acquired were equal to or greater than its renewable volume
obligation. The Agency could then verify that the RINs used for compliance purposes
were valid by simply comparing RINs reported by producers to RINs claimed by
obligated parties. The Agency will then calculate the total amount of renewable fuel
produced each year.
For fuel standards, Section 208(a) of the Clean Air Act requires that
manufacturers provide information the Administrator may reasonably require to
determine compliance with the regulations; submission of the information is therefore
mandatory. We will consider confidential all information meeting the requirements of
Section 208(c) of the Clean Air Act.
The annual public reporting and recordkeeping burden for this collection of
information is estimated to be 3.1 hours per response. Burden means the total time,
effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, or
disclose or provide information to or for a Federal agency. This includes the time needed
to review instructions; develop, acquire, install, and utilize technology and systems for
the purposes of collecting, validating, and verifying information, processing and
maintaining information, and disclosing and providing information; adjust the existing
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