Valvoline MICHAEL J. DUFFY Vice President, Environmental, Health & Safety (606) 357-7457 June 4, 1998 VIA TELECOPY AND REGULAR MAIL RCRA Docket Information Center Office of Solid Waste (name changed to Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery on January 18, 2009) (5305G) U. S. Environmental Protection Agency 401 M Street, SW Washington, DC 20460 Re: Docket Number F-98-CUOP-FFFFF Proposed Rule, May 6, 1998 Federal Register, 63 FR 25006-25010 The Valvoline Company, a division of Ashland Inc. ("Valvoline") is pleased to take this opportunity to provide the United States Environmental Protection Agency ("U.S. EPA" or "Agency") with comments on the referenced proposal to eliminate errors and clarify ambiguities in the used oil management standards. Before providing specific comments on the recent proposal, a brief explanation of why Valvoline is in a unique position to provide a broad based, real world perspective to its comments is appropriate. Valvoline is a large and diverse company with several operating divisions and subsidiaries involved in the generation and transportation of used oil and related automotive wastes. Valvoline has been in existence for over 135 years and its primary business over that period of time has been the production of motor oil, particularly for the do-it-yourself (DIY) market; those individuals that change their own oil and work on their own car. Today, Valvoline manufactures and sells many lines of automotive related products, both for DIYers and for installers - those businesses that make a living servicing cars. In the last decade, Valvoline has taken a number of steps to implement product stewardship programs for the products that it manufactures and sells, including used oil and used oil filters. Of primary significance, in 1990, Valvoline purchased the used oil collection assets of an Indiana based re-refiner and formed a new company to provide used oil collection services to not only Valvoline-owned facilities, but to industry at large. This new company was named Ecogard, Inc., and a division known as First Recovery was created to provide the used oil collection services for the industrial, installed and retail markets on a national basis. First Recovery currently collects more than 50 million gallons of used oil on an annualized basis in 48 states. Over time, First Recovery expanded its services to include other automotive related wastes, including used oil filters, used antifreeze, the new SystemOneŽ and traditional parts washers and fluids or mineral spirits. Although Valvoline fully supports the adoption of each of the four separate clarifications and corrections, our comments relate primarily to the issue of the applicability of the used oil management standards to PCB contaminated used oil. As noted in the preamble, there has been considerable confusion within the industry regarding which management standards applied to used oil containing detectable levels of PCBs, particularly material containing greater than 2 ppm but less than 50 ppm PCBs. We applaud the Agency's unambiguous statement that used oil containing PCBs is effectively regulated under a three tiered scheme: 1. Used oil fuel containing less than 2 ppm PCBs and otherwise meeting the requirements of Part 279.11 is "specification" used oil fuel and no longer subject to regulation. 2. Used oil fuel containing greater than 2 ppm but less than 50 ppm PCBs is regulated, subject to the specific limitations of Part 761.20(e), as "off-specification" used oil fuel under Part 279. 3. Used oil fuel containing 50 ppm or greater is regulated under Part 761. The elimination of this confusion will further encourage the responsible, cost effective recycling of used oil. In summary, First Recovery and Valvoline wholeheartedly support the regulatory changes proposed by the U.S. EPA and encourage the Agency to adopt the regulatory changes as proposed with no modifications. We thank the Agency for their attention to this issue and are very pleased with the direction it has taken. If we can be of any assistance to the Agency, please do not hesitate to let us know. Very Truly Yours, Michael J. Duffy