ILTA Monthly Newsletter
 

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As we begin 2021, I want to thank our membership for its support this past year. Even against the backdrop of a pandemic, I am proud of how much our association has accomplished over the past year to bring our members greater value. We have boosted our membership offerings through an enhanced website, greater interaction with members through calls and webinars, a more robust weekly and monthly newsletter, and a new membership platform that allows you to update your information easily.

In the past 12 months, your membership dues also helped with the industry's advocacy efforts. Some of our accomplishments relate to our industry's needs in the face of COVID-19, while others reflect long-standing priorities that will position our industry to be stronger well into the future. Some highlights include:

  • Ensuring fair treatment of terminals by railways. ILTA succeeded in persuading the Surface Transportation Board to issue new regulations correcting a misinterpretation of a 2014 ruling on railroad demurrage billing. The new regulation will ensure fair treatment of terminal operators, eliminating billing practices that had cost terminal operators tens of millions of dollars each year.
  • Greater, more efficient spending on ports, harbors, and waterways. ILTA successfully lobbied for a new funding mechanism for both harbors and inland waterways to allow more timely investment in this critical infrastructure essential to terminal operations. Congress finalized this bill in December.
  • Common sense approach to Process Safety Management. ILTA secured a favorable OSHA decision on Process Safety Management requirements for in-line butane blending. OSHA had introduced a departure from established practices that would have imposed significant costs on the terminal industry and downstream customers—without providing any additional health and safety benefits to workers during gasoline loading operations. This advocacy success will eliminate the needless expenditures of hundreds of thousands of dollars at each blending facility.
  • Securing a delay in summer gasoline blending rules in response to COVID-19. ILTA and coalition partners made the case to EPA for additional time for the changeover to summer-grade gasoline, giving the industry more flexibility as fuel demand flattened in the early weeks of the pandemic.
  • Greater flexibility for required EPA tank inspections. As a result of our continued advocacy EPA has proposed a new rule to reduce the burden on industry and make "in-service" inspections of certain large liquid storage tanks more widely available under Clean Air Act regulations.

ILTA's efforts to strengthen our organization and amplify our voice have positioned us to persevere for our members over the past year—especially in a time of great uncertainty.

As always, we thank you for your continued dedication to ILTA. We look forward to serving you for another year!

 

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