WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement with Lupton Petroleum Products Inc. and its affiliate Brad Hall Associates, Inc., for violations of the Clean Air Act’s conventional and renewable fuel requirements.
Lupton Petroleum and Brad Hall Associates’ actions resulted in high sulfur diesel fuel being dispensed to vehicles, potentially poisoning diesel exhaust catalysts and causing excess emissions. Additionally, Lupton’s failure to purchase and retire RINs undermined the goals of the EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard program, which is designed to reduce the United States’ reliance on fossil fuels.
“Lupton failed to comply with gasoline and diesel fuel standards that are critical to protecting communities from harmful pollution from cars and trucks,” said David M. Uhlmann, assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “At a time when climate change and increased heat make it more difficult to maintain air quality, EPA cannot allow any companies to disregard our national clean air standards.”
Under this settlement, Lupton Petroleum and Brad Hall Associates will pay a civil penalty of just over $1 million. Additionally, the companies must implement several compliance measures that include maintaining equipment to monitor blendstocks and fuel volumes, implementing facility practices plans to ensure compliance, and hiring an independent auditor to oversee compliance actions.
During settlement negotiations, Lupton Petroleum also initiated compliance by installing refinery infrastructure to facilitate fuel sampling and laboratory equipment to test fuel according to the regulatory requirements, estimated to cost approximately $200,000.
The EPA’s conventional fuels requirements include quality standards for diesel fuel and gasoline, as well as requirements relating to compliance demonstrations, including sampling and testing, reporting and recordkeeping. The requirements under EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard program obligate refiners and importers of non-renewable fuels to acquire and retire renewable fuel credits, known as Renewable Identification Numbers or RINs, to meet their renewable volume obligations each year.
Between 2015 and 2019, Lupton Petroleum and Brad Hall Associates produced and distributed, respectively, diesel fuel and gasoline for retail without complying with any of the EPA’s fuels regulations applicable to refiners and distributors. Both parties failed to comply with various regulatory requirements such as registering, taking fuel samples, testing fuel for compliance, maintaining records, submitting reports, ensuring that the diesel fuel produced and distributed met the applicable sulfur standard, and obtaining and retiring RINs.
Lupton Petroleum operates a refinery in Lupton, Arizona, where it separates transmix – a combination of diesel fuel, gasoline and other petroleum products that have mixed in a pipeline and no longer meet fuel specifications – back into diesel fuel and gasoline. Brad Hall Associates, a distributor of petroleum products, delivered transmix to the Lupton refinery and then transported the noncompliant gasoline and diesel fuel from the Lupton refinery to retail stations.
The proposed settlement, filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on July 17, 2024, is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final court approval. Information on submitting comments is available on the Justice Department’s Proposed Consent Decree web page.
More information on the settlement is available on the EPA’s Lupton BHA Clean Air Act Settlement case summary web page.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
