With regard to the record keeping requirement for test results, please clarify the document which must be kept.

Section 80.74(a)(2)(iii) requires any regulated party who samples and tests reformulated gasoline or RBOB to maintain records containing the results of the tests. The headnotes of § 80.74 specifies that the record keeping period is five years from the date a record is created. EPA believes this regulation requires that all documents that contain the results of RFG testing must be kept for five years. EPA would consider this requirement to have been met, however, where the original test result is kept, plus any record that contains results for that test that are not identical to the original test result.

Consider, for example, an RFG sample that is analyzed for oxygen by a refiner using a testing apparatus that generates a printout of the test results. In this example the laboratory chemist transfers this oxygen test result, by hand, to a laboratory summary sheet for the sample that includes test results for other parameters. This summary sheet then is used to prepare a typed report of all test results for the sample.

EPA believes that each of the three documents described in this example is a "record containing the results of" tests on RFG, and that § 80.74(a)(2)(iii) requires that each of these documents must be kept for a period of five years. However, EPA would consider the record keeping requirement to have been met if the testing apparatus printout is kept, and, in addition, any other worksheet or report that contains results for that test that differs from the testing apparatus result. (11/12/96)

This question and answer was originally posted at Consolidated List of Reformulated Gasoline and Anti-Dumping Questions and Answers: July 1, 1994 through November 10, 1997 (pdf) (333 pp, 18.17 MB, EPA420-R-03-009, July 2003)