On August 8, 2005, President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Title XV, Subtitle B of this act (entitled the Underground Storage Tank Compliance Act of 2005 or "USTCA") contains amendments to Subtitle I of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, the original legislation that created the underground storage tank (UST) program. This law significantly affected federal and state underground storage tank programs by establishing requirements for operator training, delivery prohibition, secondary containment and financial responsibility and cleanup of releases that contain oxygenated fuel additives. More information on EPA's implementation of key provisions can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/swerust1/fedlaws/EPActUST.htm

Of particular interest to Federal agencies, USTCA imposed new reporting requirements on states and federal agencies and clarified that states have authority to assess penalties against federal agencies for UST violations. USTCA also established a regulatory inspection frequency for all regulated USTs – now on a three year inspection cycle.

In response to these new requirements, EPA's Federal Facilities Enforcement Office (FFEO), in coordination with the Office of Underground Storage Tanks (OUST), developed an integrated strategy focused on improving federal facility compliance with UST requirements. Through the integrated strategy, FFEO hopes to align and maximize the Agency's diverse compliance assistance, monitoring, inspection and enforcement resources to achieve the desired result of improved federal facility UST compliance. On November 9, 2006, FFEO sent a letter to the Federal Agency Environmental Executives to provide information on the UST integrated strategy. Over the last two years, FFEO's emphasis has been on providing compliance assistance and helping to meet the inspection mandates for federal facility USTs. To facilitate Federal Agency reporting, FedCenter has developed an UST data collection and reporting tool. Some enforcement activity has been underway. EPA expects more focus on UST enforcement in the next few years. To assist in UST enforcement efforts, FFEO has prepared an UST Enforcement Compendium. The Compendium consists of two main parts: a narrative summary of the UST compliance monitoring and enforcement process; and a listing of key enforcement-related documents.