EPA’s Actions to Strengthen Regulations Governing Tank Construction and Contingency Plans

EPA has taken steps to strengthen the regulations for tank construction and contingency plans, although these steps do not fully implement our three recommendations. Minimizing damage from spilled oil. Therefore, we recommended that owners and operators be required to develop such response plans. Difficulty in securing OMB’s approval to collect data for a national inventory of regulated facilities also delayed implementation. It needed this type of information to target for inspection those facilities that posed the greatest environmental risk. Although EPA has not established overall inspection priorities, it has identified one national priority. In 1994, EPA partially implemented our recommendation on contingency planning, and by 1996 it expects to implement three more recommendations (on inspection procedures and documentation, training for inspectors, and penalties for noncompliance). EPA is uncertain when the other three recommendations (on tank construction and design and on targeting inspections) will be implemented. Summary of Recommendations in GAO’s 1989 Report

In 1989, we made seven recommendations to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in order to improve the regulation and inspection of aboveground oil storage tanks. Recommendations to Improve the Inspection Program

To better ensure the safety of the nation’s aboveground oil storage facilities and decrease the chances of oil being discharged into the environment, we recommended that the Administrator strengthen EPA’s aboveground oil storage facility inspection program by developing, in coordination with state and local authorities, a system of inspection priorities on the basis of a national inventory of tanks; developing instructions for performing and documenting inspections; defining and implementing minimum training needs for inspectors; and establishing a national policy for fining violators. Address Correction Requested
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) actions to address weaknesses in the regulation and inspection of aboveground oil storage tanks (AST), and provided information on the age, size, and other characteristics of AST.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) EPA has not fully implemented any of its seven recommendations to improve the safety of aboveground oil storage tanks; (2) EPA has only partially implemented the recommendations because it gave higher priority to implementing new legislative requirements and had difficulty obtaining Office of Management and Budget approval to collect data for a national inventory of regulated facilities; (3) EPA has partially implemented one of three recommendations to strengthen its regulations governing storage tank construction; (4) proposed regulations emphasize, but do not require, that tank construction comply with certain standards and recommend that tanks be periodically tested; (5) EPA has required the facilities that pose the greatest environmental risk to develop response plans to minimize damages from spilled oil, but it has no plans to extend the requirement to other facilities; and (6) EPA expects to implement three recommendations on improving inspection procedures and documentation, training inspectors, and establishing penalties for noncompliance by 1996, but it does not know when the fourth recommendation on targeting inspections will be implemented.